Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jimin wanted to run into Taehyung’s arms when he landed back home, that was his plan. Like it used to be. He was forever falling into the arms of his, once, beloved. Now they were just friends, but that wasn’t going to stop him. Except that, when he met Taehyung’s eyes across the busy airport, heads of people leaving their loved ones or returning home, across from toddlers running about and businessmen walking with a cool head, he was greeted with Taehyung and another boy. 

Jimin felt a kick to his stomach. 

He wanted to double over and find a way to breathe. He wanted to place his hands on his knees and aid his lungs to do what they were supposed to do naturally. It’s what racers did after a sprint. That’s how he felt now, aching and acidic in his blood. 

Because Taehyung and the boy were holding hands.

He saw Taehyung smile, it reached his eyes like it normally did when it saw Jimin. And Jimin forced his own facial muscles to replicate the image; he had to. It was his fault that they had broken up, he was the one who left their perfect relationship. He was the one to blame.

The suitcase in his hands felt like it contained a dead body rather than the souvenirs and little clothes that he had packed in it. His arms felt rigid, as if someone had forgotten to oil his joints. But he moved towards his former boyfriend and now just best friend.

“Jimin-ah!” Taehyung shouted when he was within earshot. And Jimin found himself hugging his best friend, making sure he did it in a way that was not going to make the boy next to him feel threatened. He didn’t nuzzle his nose into Taehyung’s neck, or hold him like he was a raft in a swirling ocean. He held him tightly, but it was not tight enough. 

“Taehyung-ah,” he allowed himself to whisper. The name as familiar as the world “I” or “me”. They had once been a “us” but sadly no more. He let go, a lot sooner than he wanted to. But he had to remind himself what they were now. 

Jimin took a step back and put a hand forward, “I’m Jimin, nice to meet you,” he smiled softly. 

“I’m Yoongi,” the boy said, a gummy smile on display. “I have heard a lot about you.” 

Jimin couldn’t say the same. Taehyung had never mentioned him once. 

It would be a lie to say that he didn’t feel betrayed. The two had kept in touch, Jimin still knew Kim Taehyung as his best friend and yet he had not mentioned this? It was the hardest part to accept. He was not angry at Taehyung for moving on, but keeping it from Jimin? 

He felt lied to and cheated. 

Yes, he was to blame for the ending of their relationship, for his selfish decision to pursue his passion of dancing than maintaining their relationship. But he deserved to know that Taehyung had moved on. Was he not worth at least that much of truth?

He hid all these emotions from his thoughts, pushed a door onto them and threw the key away. He needed to focus on the present, even if it was costing him all his energy. 

As they were walking out of the airport, Jimin looked sideways at Taehyung, to see if he could read his emotions like all the years before. He had only gone for three years; he knew he’d be able to read Taehyung even if a century had passed between them seeing each other. That’s how close they had once been. 

Taehyung wore a mask on, Jimin could see that clearly enough. He wore the expression that was for the wider public, the “I’m as chilled as ever” look but Jimin wondered if a battle was waging underneath the calm demeanour he displayed. 

Jimin did not expect this sudden change between them, he felt caught off guard, a fish on a net.

He watched as Yoongi presses himself into Taehyung’s side, how even though he was smaller, he was the one who looked protective of Taehyung. 

Jimin swallowed bile. 

Taehyung had found himself someone to love him whilst he was away chasing his dreams. He could tell Yoongi was in love with Taehyung. How? Because Jimin knew that feeling better than anyone else. He knew what it was to love and be loved by Kim Taehyung. He saw the way Yoongi looked at Taehyung, his eyes gazing softly as ever. How Taehyung’s name sounded so soothing coming out of his mouth.

He tried to answer all the questions Taehyung fired at him, “The flight was great, no trouble at all”, “No the food was actually decent on the plane”, “Yes, I want tomorrow to just sleep in.” But his mind never stopped churning out commentary on how Taehyung and Yoongi sat next to each other, their legs pressed together. Yoongi’s hand found Taehyung over and over again. 

Jimin had grown up thinking Taehyung’s hands were just perfect for his own to slip into, he felt a sharp jab in his lungs at seeing how that was no longer true. It was made for someone else too. Someone that wasn’t Jimin. 

The plan was for Jimin to live with Taehyung like they had done before he had left him for three years. How had Taehyung not mentioned his boyfriend? How was the plan meant to work? He couldn’t ask now, not in front of Yoongi. Or was Taehyung so comfortable in his relationship with Yoongi that he had no problem with his ex living in the same space as him? He wondered if Yoongi knew that the pair had dated from highschool till Jimin left for university. Because surely if he did, he would not be okay with their arrangement.

Jimin’s eyes took adjusting to the new living room space, but he was far too jet-legged to place what was amiss. The three years had softened the edges of his memory of the place he had shared with Taehyung but he knew something was different. 

“Make yourself at home,” Taehyung said. And Jimin bit the inside of his cheeks, Taehyung looked effortlessly beautiful; a pair of loose black trousers paired with one of his sweaters, and yet he could walk on a catwalk and drop jaws at how well he carried himself. 

“I’m going to go shower first,” Jimin wanted a moment to himself, he knew he could not think about what his future looked like now, or about Taehyung withholding things from him, but he just needed to breathe without it hurting so much. 

Yoongi shuffled over to the kitchen with a small smile as Jimin pulled his suitcase into his room. He stood aghast for a while, it was as if every fibre had been fixed in place since the last time he had seen it. He had not expected this. It was as if the three years ceased to exist and he had not left to study abroad.

Jimin felt Taehyung’s arms around himself, and without thinking he leaned into Taehyung’s hug. Taehyung spoke into Jimin’s ear, “I missed you,” and every inch of Jimin was alight with a feeling he had learnt to curb for the longest time. 

He heard the sound of cutlery being moved about in the kitchen, a reminder of how they were not the only ones present. Jimin put Taehyung’s actions to the fact that even as best friends they had always been comfortable with skinship; holding hands, hugging and cuddling all came naturally to the pair. 

He did not tell Taehyung how every second of every day he had felt his absence. How he had slept with the image of his smile and woke up with the same picture at the back of his eyelids. 

Instead, he said, “The room is exactly as I left it.” 

Taehyung still held onto him, “I kept it locked unless I was using it, no one but me has been in this room for the past 3 years.” 

What did this even mean? Why was Taehyung tightening his grip on Jimin’s waist? Why was his breath tickling his neck and ear? 

Jimin wiggled out of Taehyung’s grip, he felt every emotion known to mankind at once. His mind was racing with a thousand thoughts and he knew he was going to need to punch a wall or something to bring his mind back to normal. 

What game was taehyung playing? Or was he just reading too much into the way Taehyung felt against him? 

He needed a hot shower and sleep.

“I’m going to jump in the shower, I’m knackered,” Jimin gulped out in one go. 

He didn’t trust himself with words, was too sure he would scream instead of speak. He reached for his suitcase when Taehyung held his hand mid-air. Jimin tried not to remember how they had spent their entire youth holding hands at every moment ever, sometimes it wasn’t even convenient to do so. But that didn’t stop them. 

Taehyung’s hands engulfed his own smaller ones, the softness reminding Jimin of warm summers bathing in the sun and cold winters cuddled up together.

“Everything you need for a shower is in the toilet,” Taehyung said matter-of-factly. He was always attentive towards the smaller details of Jimin’s life, replacing his charger when it broke, fixing a button on Jimin’s favourite shirt, replacing the water by the bedside that Jimin could not sleep without. 

“Hyung and I made dinner, so don’t take your normal time in the shower,” Taehyung said with a smile. 

Jimin withdrew his hands and walked away, his shoulders dropped as soon as he entered the bathroom. This was going to be one long night. He sighed.

It was an unspoken rule that Jimin and taehyung always sat opposite each other whilst sitting at a table. it had been established it was the best way to take each other in, to converse, to indulge in skinship under the table whilst sitting across from each other. 

And hence why it felt like someone had kicked Jimin on the back of his knees and made him unstable on his feet when he saw Taehyung take a seat next to Jimin. And when Yoongi reached the chair and sat across from Jimin’s former love. 

It was just another stab at his already torn heart. Every action was accumulating to a pain Jimin knew he did not have the threshold for. 

Jimin messes with the food on his plate. He had not had real home-cooked food for over a week, he had not seen it worth doing grocery shopping when he was bound for home anyways. And yet, he could not stomach the food he knew the couple had made him. Sharing inside jokes in a kitchen that was no longer his own. Sneaking kisses between each task, sharing a glimpse of a future that was somebody else’s to share with. He had lost his appetite. 

“So what do you do for a profession hyung?” he asked, being very aware of how the person who had cooked for him was a complete and utter stranger to him. 

“Wait, did Taehyung not tell you?” 

“He must have done, but I have an awful memory!” Jimin lied, not wanting to cause any friction between the pair. He could sense Yoongi stretching his leg, knew it would rest in between Taehyung’s. Calves touching, rubbing. 

Jimin bit the insides of his cheek. Another stab tallied on his heart. 

“I do interior decorating,” Yoongi said bashfully.

He made a sweeping gesture and it finally clicked. The difference in the home; the subtle lighting, the grey tones on the walls only to be broken by brightly coloured soft furniture. The quirkiness of it all that could only be added professionally. 

It flared up two beacons of light in jimin’s brain; synapses firing and wheeling. Firstly, it meant Yoongi must have lived here for a long while for him to have slowly made his mark on Taehyung’s (and his former) abode. But more alarmingly: and yet Taehyung had not let yoongi touch a speck in their shared room. 

What did that mean? Why was he so reluctant on Yoongi invading his and Jimin’s former room? Why had Taehyung done all this, and why was he continuing to act so ambiguously? 

Jimin thought his brain would give in, collapse in on itself from the pressure building against it.

Jimin sat and watched the pair clean up, how easily they fell into routine; knew who would remove the dishes and who was going to put the leftover in the fridge. How Taehyung giggled when he washed up, his eyes gleaming when he met Yoongi’s gaze. 

The ache he felt ran deep, right through his spine.

He faced the showerhead at the opposite wall, turned it on at full blast and sat down at the corner of the bath. He was too scared his sobs would penetrate through the thin walls to the kitchen where he had said his goodnight to the couple.

They had broken up once already, but it was just a helpful precaution for Jimin. He did not know he would return to this. He had given permission for taehyung to move on, but it was empty words; he was always going to return to him. How did Taehyung not know this? Jimin had believed, like everyone else, that the pair had known each other the best. Then how come Taehyung had taken his words and acted on them? How did he not know it was all a lie? 

Jimin gripped onto the edge of the bathtub, his fingers turning white at the pressure. He gasped for air between his sobs. ‘Was I that easy to move on from?’ he wondered. His tears felt like they were gushing out faster than the showerhead on his left, it was a competition that jimin was determined to win. 

Breaking up with Taehyung was one thing, but coming home to him having taken another lover was completely different. Maybe he would have coped with the pain of it much better if he had been introduced to the concept of Taehyung moving on whilst he was away. But Taehyung had stripped Jimin off of that pleasure. 

Was this all planned? Had Taehyung done this to cause the sudden impact of it all? Like a car crash on a motorway; a slim chance of surviving the hit. That was how it felt now; as if a car going 100 miles per hour had crashed against his entire self. He hated how physical the pain was, how it ebbed through him. 

His shoulders shook, his hands lost their grip on the bathtub and he could no longer see through the tears. Jimin felt like he was dying for the second time. And this one was more painful than the first. 

And so he had not noticed Taehyung entering the bathroom until Taehyung’s large hands were holding his face, rubbing away at the tears with his thumb. Slowly and with so much tenderness that Jimin felt himself lean into the touch. How was it that he was being comforted by the exact person who was the cause of this pain? Jimin hated himself for feeling like everything was going to be okay just after one touch. He hated how easily he could be swayed to fall for Taehyung’s actions. 

Taehyung was kneeling on the bathroom floor, Jimin’s face just a few centimetres from his. 

Jimin looked into Taehyung’s earthy brown eyes; what he had once found to be his home. The softness of it reminding him of everything that was natural and normal. 

“Wh-y,” Jimin gulped, “did you...do th-is to me?” his tears were sliding down his nose and onto Taehyung’s thighs, it had already created a small map on his trousers. He felt broken and unfixable. He was never going to stop crying, he would die before it. 

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung whispered, their faces nearly touching. 

“Why did you-“jimin gasped, “-why Taehyung?” 

There were a thousand whys and Jimin hoped Taehyung would figure them out himself. Jimin was in no state to form proper sentences. Having Taehyung in front of him now made it all that much worse. it was like someone had decided to drown his already beaten up and aching body. The pain was relentless now that taehyung was here.

Jimin looked at Taehyung’s face, blurred as if seeing him in a downpour of rain. He wondered if he knew all the whys: why did you move on? Why did you choose someone else besides me? Why did you forget the future we built together? Why did you fall in love with someone else? Why?

“Answer me Taehyung, I beg you.” 

“Shhh, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay Jimin-ah,” was all that Taehyung said, he closed the distance between the two until they were pressed against each other; it was the tight hug that neither could have done in front of Yoongi.

And so Jimin cried, his face buried deep into Taehyung’s collar bone, one of Taehyung’s hands in his hair, pressing him closer and the other hand on his back, holding him in place. 

It was a breathtaking view; the shower cascading on one side, pure and loud and a broken boy shattering to pieces in the arms of his former lover on the other side, tainted and fractured.

Jimin lay curled up with his head buried in Taehyung’s lap, who had one of his legs crossed and the other dangling off the edge of the bed. 

He was singing about two winter bears who slept happily, about being able to forget the bad days when they were together. It was a lullaby that both had grown used to singing. Taehyung had taught it to Jimin early on in their friendship where they both slept clutching their phones, face-timing each other until they both fell asleep. And then later into each other’s ears as they lay side by side in bed. 

Jimin was going to learn to fall asleep on his own now. There was no space for him with Taehyung, not anymore anyways. 

He closed his eyes until they physically hurt; he was trying to block out all the thoughts of how as soon as he did give in to sleep, Taehyung would slowly leave and join his boyfriend in bed. How Yoongi’s face would be buried in Taehyung’s chest as he clutched onto him to aid sleep. He always needed something to hold onto to sleep; be it a pillow, Jimin or now presumably Yoongi. 

He tried hard to clutch at sleeps hand, it was the only relief he would get. But sleep, like usual, was evading him. Playing hide and seek. But rather than counting numbers, it was counting all the way Yoongi had now taken Jimin’s place. It was an endless list, going all the way to infinity. 

Jimin held onto one of Taehyung’s hands with both of his, and he felt his other hand in his hair. Caressing him, lulling him to sleep... ‘so he could join his current lover in bed, fall asleep Jimin, fall asleep quickly’ he thought to himself, a wave of sadness gushing through every one of his cells.

Years earlier, Jimin would have kissed the palm of Taehyung’s hand, or on wilder nights teased him by putting his fingers in his mouth until one thing led to another and they were making love once more. 

He was bitter to have that right taken off him now. Bitter about it all.

At 4 am, when Jimin woke up, his throat parched, he reached for the water bottle on his side of the bed and drank in huge mouthfuls. 

When he settled back in bed and turned to his right to face Taehyung, he put his hand to his mouth to stifle the scream that nearly broke the night’s silence. Momentarily his mind had erased the 3 years of separation, he had woken up in his old room and was in the same bed that he had slept in the night before he left for his degree. 

The shock of it all tumbled down on him like a load of boulders, he struggled under the weight of the truth. 

Because there was no Taehyung sleeping to his right: there was an empty space where he ought to lay. 

He needed to get out of this house, it was haunted with all their happiest memories. A ghost of what their relationship had once been.

As Jimin tried to calm his heavy breathing and soothe his mind back to sleep, just until it was early enough for him to leave without causing any suspicion, he heard what had woken him up. 

With the jetlag he was going through and most importantly after the emotional outpour, he could have slept in a desert for 30 days without water. It was not his thirst that had woken him up from his slumber; it was the sound of Taehyung crying. 

Over the years of being together, the pair had cried more in each other’s arms than their peers could ever compete with. 

They were boys of emotions; of soft touches and long talks, of night walks and tears. It bound them together in a way that felt like it was right down to their DNA, wound up in their double helix. 

Jimin could recognise the sound of Taehyung’s crying even after a thousand years.

When Taehyung cried, he sniffled a lot, gulped for air and blinked quickly to clear away the tears. Jimin tried to imagine his face next to Yoongi’s on the pillow, the latter wiping his tears whilst Taehyung clung to him. 

“Taehyung-ssi, it’s okay, come on now,” he heard Yoongi say. He spoke in a normal tone, they both must have thought Jimin was asleep; which given how exhausted he had been would have been the logical thing. 

Jimin was suddenly aware of just how silent the night was; the birds not having risen yet, the traffic still in its lull and the house not yet awake with all of its appliances and their residual sounds. 

He could hear his stomach grumble; the sheets move against his body and most importantly his heartbeat in his ears. 

He filled in the blanks between the speech; where Yoongi presses his lips to Taehyung’s. Again, and again. Reassuring him of his comfort, of his warmth, the taste of sweetness that only a lover can give. 

What the older boy said next froze Jimin’s blood in his veins. “We did this once and we can do it again.” 

Just how quickly had Taehyung moved on from Jimin for Yoongi to have helped him over his heartbreak? Did yoongi know everything about the relationship they once had? What words had Taehyung used to describe the crime that Jimin had committed? 

He felt physically sick. He curled himself into a small bed in the vast emptiness of the bed, trying to shield himself from the agony that the night was pelting him with.

Had taehyung shared their deepest secrets with this man Jimin had just met earlier that evening? How could he? 

Another sniffle. He heard their bodies move, the bed grunted under their joint movement Jimin saw in his mind how Taehyung nestled closer to Yoongi so that his face was now buried in Yoongi’s neck, it was what he would have done with Jimin at this point. 

“Hyung,” Taehyung’s voice came out deep and raspy, as it always did when he cried. “Hyung-“ 

He was probably struggling to put his words to sentences. His mind worn out with the pain. 

A warm glow of comfort alighted Jimin’s stomach knowing that Taehyung still pained for him. That their former relationship still left a scar so deep that it was starting to bleed even after he had moved on. Jimin knew he was being selfish for thinking like this about Taehyung’s pain, but there was an ease in knowing you were not the only one suffering. A sense of camaraderie in anguish. 

“I thought,” a pause, maybe another kiss, “it wouldn’t be so hard this time around.” 

“I know baby, I know.”

Nothing was said for such a long time that Jimin thought the couple must have fallen asleep. He heard their laboured breathing and was about to think through everything he had learnt, except that he heard Taehyung gasp again, the noise filled with tears. 

He pictured taehyung lifting his head from where it lay on Yoongi’s chest so that their eyes were locked before he said, “Please never leave me Hyung.” 

It was the nail to Jimin’s coffin; because that had been his one and only mistake. And that was now Taehyung’s biggest nightmare. 

Jimin had done his own undoing.

Chapter Text

“Did you sleep well?” Taehyung asked as soon as jimin was in sight. He scratched the back of his head as he watched him take a seat on the breakfast table. 

“Hmmm,” Jimin grumbled. He was not a big morning talker. 

Taehyung sat opposite of Jimin, and Jimin felt like it was some sick joke he was playing on him. 

“Yoongi hyung has gone to work?” 

“He left at 8 am, a good 3 hours ago,” Taehyung laughed into his cereal. “This is my second breakfast of the day.” 

Jimin tried not to think about how Taehyung woke up each morning with his boyfriend, he wondered how many routines and habits the pair had formed that he would slowly learn of. He didn’t want to know. He was going to escape before his heart was tainted anymore. 

“Can you add me as a named driver on your car? I want to go see some flats,” Jimin said in a nonchalant voice. 

He was taken aback by the force of which his hand was grabbed mid-air, his toast nearly dropping from his hand. The water glass in the middle of the table was sent flying. Jimin could hear the water fall on the marble floor. 

There was fear in Taehyung’s eyes, his pupils dilated. He was breathing as if a tiger stood behind Jimin and he was frozen on the spot. 

“You just got here,” it sounded more like an accusation than statement. 

“Yes, but I have to think of my next step,” Jimin stammered, he left the next part, ‘since you’ve already figured out your future with Yoongi hyung.’ He couldn’t get himself to say that out loud. Of fear of the pain, he may cause to the already wounded boy. 

“You come back 3 years later only to leave after 1 night? Why did you even bother,” Taehyung flung Jimin’s hand back, so forcefully that the smaller boy gasped. 

“But how can I live here?” Jimin asked, his voice was dangerously close to breaking. Clouding up with tears. 

“Because this is your home? The one we both moved in together?” The red glow on his cheek was dimming, he was softening to Jimin once more.

“I know we moved in together Taehyung, but things have changed now,” he couldn’t meet his eyes. Why was Taehyung being such a fool? Was he expecting Jimin to spell out to him that he felt like an intruder in the home that was supposedly his own? 

“Please Jimin-ah, I waited 3 years for your return. I know we’re not in the same circumstances. But I just want my best friend back,” his eyes were glazed with tears, he was looking at Jimin like it was so simple for the two to live in the same home whilst being so completely different than what they had started as.

“You can’t pretend like it’s normal for the two of us to live together after what we had once been,” Jimin spoke, more towards his toast than addressed at the boy in front of him. 

“Can’t we forget that all? Just live as two friends?” 

Jimin looked at Taehyung with his eyebrows raised. ‘Is he being this stupid on purpose? Am I some punchline of a joke he’s sharing between himself and Yoongi?’ he thought. 

“Is Yoongi hyung not uncomfortable with me being here?” 

Now it was Taehyung’s turn to raise his eyebrows, they went all the way to his hairline. 

“Why on earth would he be uncomfortable, Jimin-ah? You’re my best friend after all.” he shook his head as if Jimin was being really strange. 

Jimin felt like he was submerged in water. His ears were rushing with the sound of water, he was losing grasp of himself and all that made sense.

Jimin gave up the subject of moving out. He was not ready to argue with Taehyung who seemed to lack the basic sense that seeing your ex live a happy life with their new boyfriend was as worse as heartbreaks went. It was a cruel joke that life was playing on Jimin.

It was fate’s way of saying “Here’s everything you could have had but you left behind”. It was a horror film he couldn’t switch off. A nightmare where he was stuck in wet sand, his destination in view but completely out of reach. 

He felt like he was dying from the inside out.

They both sat in the living room, it bathed in the mid-morning glow. Jimin threw his head back on the sofa, he wanted to stop thinking. He wanted to press the pause button on his synapses. He was tired of whatever sick role he was playing in this screenplay from hell.

His eyes snapped open as he felt Taehyung’s hand rest softly on his cheek. His thumb brushing the flecks of light cast from the window. He pushed his head further into the sofa, ‘Whatever the hell is he thinking?’ Jimin thought, he felt his pulse quicken, just when he thought things couldn’t get worse for his already confused mind, it always did. 

“I missed the way you felt,” Taehyung whispered. 

Jimin felt the warmth of his breath on his neck and chin. Jimin moved slightly to the left, he couldn’t help but notice the hurt expression on Taehyung’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Jimin said as he slowly rose up from his seat. 

He wasn’t going to be the reason why taehyung cheated. He would never be the cause of that sort of pain to anyone. Why was Taehyung doing all this when Jimin knew Taehyung hated cheaters with a dying passion? Just why?

“I’m going to visit my family,” Jimin said, it was half an hour later and he had only his phone in hand. Taehyung had yet to give him a key to the house, but he wasn’t sure he really wanted a set. Not the way things were going. 

Taehyung lifted his head from the sofa, where he was dozing off, the sunlight hitting his lower half, his arms shading his eyes. 

“You said you were going in the evening?” 

He had meant to, but he was scared of what may happen with the hours of aloneness that stretched out in front of them. Jimin was not sure he had much self-control left in him. 

He knew another word whispered in his ears could mean the unravelling of him; like a lotus flower on a level pond. He was scared of how the feelings of Taehyung’s fingers on his skin may lead him to melt within his palm, all sweetness and honey. 

He was just so scared of what he would be capable of when he was around Taehyung. He shuddered just at the thought of it. 

He had texted in his family group chat that he was free and within minutes both his parent and sibling were also miraculously free to meet him. He was liking this special treatment he was getting, but truth be told, he had been away for 3 entire years. It made sense, but he pretended to be chuffed by it anyways. 

They would have picked him up at the airport, but he was coming home late and knew Taehyung wanted to be the first to see him, so he had declined his family’s wish, told them to get a good night’s rest and that he would visit them the next evening. 

Maybe he ought to have listened to his mum, he realised now that mums were never wrong.

“They’ve freed up their day's schedule for me, so may as well go now,” Jimin said with a shrug, it wasn’t a lie, it was just half the truth. 

Taehyung pouted. His lips stuck out in a way that made Jimin look away, he had kissed it away many a times and now it was going to be just a bittersweet memory.

“So have I,” he said. 

He had decided to take a days holiday from his grad job to spend the day with Jimin, Jimin had expected nothing less whilst he had learnt of the plan, thousands of miles away from him. 

“Come with me,” he smiled. It was the first genuine smile he had given Taehyung since he had been back. He felt lighter at that small action.

He wanted Taehyung in his family home, just like it used to be. Not as boyfriends or lovers, no, but as two high school best friends who were inseparable. He missed that Taehyung the most. 

The innocence of the pair, of not knowing what the world held in its palm. How from afar even an ember looks beautiful, but only on touch did one realises its evil intentions to burn. To scald and eat away at the flesh. 

He missed the naive boys they had once been.

Taehyung was at the door even before Jimin could cross the living room. He had the biggest grin on his face and Jimin thought if he looked closely enough he could see Taehyung vibrating with excitement. 

For a few seconds, Jimin had led Taehyung to believe they would spend the afternoon separately. But he couldn’t be that cruel. Not to someone who looked this happy on the mere idea of going back home with him. He ached in the softest way to see a Taehyung so pure and flawless. He wanted to freeze him in place and keep him safe. Keep him close.

Jimin sat leaning into his mum, making himself smaller to fit into her arms. He took in his father, who glanced back at him every few seconds to make sure he was still there. And stuck his tongue out to his younger brother who sat on the other sofa with Taehyung. 

3 years ago, Jimin would have looked at himself from plan view and thought ‘my family’ with a smile, but now with no possible future with Taehyung he wondered if he was allowed to think the same way... Not when Taehyung himself was planning a life with someone else. 

Letting go of the future of what they could have been was the hardest part about this whole situation. 

He watched Taehyung babble on about some newspaper article he had been unfortunate enough to read that morning, his mind wandering off to the years that had written itself in this house in their youth.

All the afternoons they had spent laying on their stomachs in this very living room, pouring over the latest manga. Casting the real world to the background as they lost themselves in one that was much more fascinating. 

Their sides pressed into each other, hair tickling the other’s face. Occasionally, Jimin would glance to his side and see Taehyung read, his lips pronouncing some of the words that his mind found too hard to hear in its inner monologue. He knew he did the same. He would go back to reading knowing he was always going to have a companion in taehyung no matter what. 

It was in this house they dragged their overly heavy textbooks into, spending hours together over the piles of homework that never seemed to cease. But at least they had each other. 

They could do anything as long as they had each other.

They would sit, in their summer shorts and light t-shirts on the front steps of the house, ice-creams melting before they could lick it fast enough. Always so lost in conversation or each other. They were each other’s biggest distractions and they wouldn’t change it for the world.

Jimin wondered how he had lasted 3 years away from the same boy he had struggled to be away from for more than a few hours at a time. Each school morning was welcomed because it meant the reunion with his better half. Each weekend a battle to get out into the street and find his way to wherever Taehyung was; be it his house, an Internet cafe or the park around the corner. 

Had he really done that? Had he really chosen to put a distance of oceans between the two of them for his own selfish needs? 

He shivered. Yes, yes he had. And now he was paying for it.

It was a week later when Jimin found himself sat side by side with taehyung, the sky had begun its subtle colouring and the sun was about to rise any moment. It was in that small gap between the world being dark and being bathed in the orange glow of another day.

Jimin wondered what Yoongi would say when he found his boyfriend outside with his ex, his bed cold and deserted. Would he be angry? Hurt? Disappointed? Or was he already expecting something between the old lovers? 

It made Jimin want to punch a wall at how much he didn’t know.

He heard Taehyung sigh next to him. The morning chill was seeping into their bones, growing in their cells and threatening to overtake their body. But still they sat in and took huge gulps of the air, aware that in a few hours the world would be awake and the air would be turned muddy and cloudy with how many bodies it passed through. 

With the millions of questions that jimin had felt rush through his mind, it took him by surprise that Taehyung was actually the first to ask one. 

“Do you regret leaving me behind?” 

It was a simple enough question and yet it tore into the deepest layer of Jimin’s skin. He felt naked and uprooted. He struggled to inhale, how was he to answer? 

He saw the past week of being back in Taehyung’s life; a screenplay of his heartbreak. In all its shining glory and unprecedented agony.

He learnt that Yoongi wasn’t a big talker, but Taehyung’s phone did flash up with lengthy paragraphed texts once in a while. Which Taehyung read, alone, and came back with red puffy eyes. Jimin marvelled at how easily Yoongi’s words could unravel his best friend. 

Yoongi was not big on initiating a lot of the physical affection, except hand-holding, the little guy seemed to glue his hands to Taehyung as if it was a lifeboat. But he loved being at the receiving end of Taehyung’s skinship. As long as Taehyung was initiating it, he seemed as happy as a squirrel finding its hidden acorns after long months of secrecy. Jimin observed how big his eyes grew and how the tips of his ears turned pink at every one of Taehyung’s touches. 

Once he had caught Jimin’s eyes whilst Taehyung hugged him, hard, and he gave Jimin one of his gummy smiles, he lowered his eyes and it caught at Jimin’s heart how shy he looked. Jimin turned away, not because he was hurt, but because he felt like it was a private moment that Yoongi didn’t feel comfortable being observed by an outsider. Because wasn’t he just that now?

They sat at the dinner table, and Jimin watched Taehyung place all the biggest pieces of his own favourite food on Yoongi’s plate rather than his own. 

“Are you looking after hyung?” he would ask, a shaky laughter ringing throughout the room. and Taehyung would giggle in response; yes, yes he was. 

At the age of 16, Taehyung had burnt an omelette and Jimin had scolded him, “How can anyone burn an omelette? That’s like impossible,” he was hungry and now the pair had used up all the eggs in Taehyung’s family kitchen. His mum wouldn’t be too happy.

Taehyung had sat pouting across from Jimin, whilst the latter tried to salvage at least something edible out of the mess that was in front of him. 

“I’m never going to be a good cook Jimin-ahhhh,” he’d groaned, Jimin had risen from his seat to kiss away the pout that had planted itself so beautifully on Taehyung’s lips. 

And now taehyung could cook as well as his father. 

Jimin’s ‘Taetae’ had grown so much over the past 3 years, and he hadn’t even noticed until now. The change was due to a Min Yoongi, rather than himself, he thought painfully.

“I didn’t know 3 years was going to change us this much,” Jimin answered. 

For him it was just the physical space that had been a small problem, he didn’t know he would come back to all of this. He had expected for them to still be each other’s at the end of it, because Jimin was willing to wait a whole lifetime for his Taehyung, and yet it had only taken 1095 days for Taehyung to move on to someone new. Jimin wanted to laugh, he thought he was the impatient one of the two. Apparently not. Did he really know his own best friend this little?

“I cried every night for 13 months after you left me... That kind of thing leaves a mark Jimin-ah.” 

“What happened after the 13 months?” 

“I found Yoongi-hyung.”

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?

Chapter Text

Taehyung watched Jimin scream, he could feel himself being dragged forward with him. The fear in Jimin's eyes was something he would remember until his very last days. 

He felt the blood in his veins stop in its track. 

And he loosened his grip on Jimin's hand.

It was the day of Jimin's arrival back home. 3 years he had waited for his Jimin-ah to return and it was finally over. He had felt each day as if it was etched into his skin with a hot needle. Every day worse than the previous. He had missed Jimin like a lost limb.

Taehyung had wanted to spot Jimin as soon as he came through the double doors of terminal 3. He had ad stared at it for the past 20 minutes, but just at the last moment, he had turned around to face Yoongi. 

"I'm so nervous hyung!" He had said in a shaky breath. 

Yoongi, as always, to calm him had placed his hands in Taehyung's. The softness of the gesture meant the world to Taehyung’s shaking nerves. 

By the time he had turned to face the doors again, Jimin was already standing there. He looked as pale as a ghost. Taehyung thought it was probably due to the long hours spent travelling. 

Taehyung felt his lungs take the first proper breath in 3 years. He inhaled a huge gulp of air. It was the first time he felt alive in the past 1095 days. He beamed up at Jimin; his eye smile that only Jimin was entitled to. 

His best friend. 

The love of his life.

"Jimin-ah!" He shouted. 

His favourite name in the entire world. The only name he felt at home whispering. It was the name of the boy who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. The only name he wanted to be engraved next to his on his tombstone.

He was so happy at the sight of his beloved, he thought he would never be disappointed ever again. 

And instantly, his heart broke at how wrong he was. 

Jimin's hug felt aloof, it was unfamiliar. This was not the way they normally hugged... Why was Jimin holding him like that? 

He gulped.

All the fears that had shackled him over the past 3 years felt like they were tightening around his ankles again. 

Had Jimin's words not been just a precaution? Had all the things he had said before he left not been a lie? Did he really want the pair to be friends? 

No, no, no.

The wound that Yoongi had healed over the past 23 months was bleeding again. All the reassurances that Yoongi had built around Taehyung were crumbling down. 

Taehyung had thought his and Jimin’s love was timeless. They were always meant to find their way back to each other. Right?

Taehyung watched Jimin and Yoongi shake hands, Jimin introducing himself before Taehyung got around to doing it. He was always the initiator, the one who made the soft cuddle sessions turn into something more. The one who turned a simple morning kiss into hours in bed. He ached for it all once more.

He saw jimin's confusion, the small bitting of his lower lip at the boy next to Taehyung. He had meant to introduce the two, he really did! 

At first, he did not want to tell Jimin that he was struggling for money, the last thing he wanted was Jimin to be worried about Taehyung, whilst he was in an unfamiliar country, dealing with all the shit that international students have to go through. Jimin had gone a month earlier than the normal students, he had more orientation scheduled in his timetable than one could shake a finger at. 

There was the new language, new etiquettes of a new country, the finance and of course studying to worry about. 

Taehyung had kept it to himself that now there was only himself working, he was struggling to pay all the rent, the bills and everything else that came with living alone. 

The two-bedroom house seemed like a haunted mansion. The first time the thought had crossed his mind, he knew how he was going to kill two birds with one stone; he was going to rent the room. He would be far less lonely, and the bills would be halved. It was the best idea he had had in a while. He even patted his own back.

Taehyung never really knew how to break it to Jimin that there was someone else living in the home they had shared. He felt the tips of his ears growing red at the embarrassment of telling Jimin he was still struggling for money. 

Weeks passed before he finally grew confident enough to introduce Yoongi to Jimin. 

He was going to calmly tell his best friend everything, right from the start. Without gaps... Except that that day Jimin's face was tight around the edges on his facetime screen. 

Taehyung swept his own thoughts under the carpet and coaxed out what was eating away at his lover. 

Jimin was a born listener. It took the world’s worth of work to ever get him to be vulnerable; even to Taehyung. He was someone who was used to comforting others, and to him being comforted felt wrong. So, Taehyung put his hundred per cent in reeling out his discomfort that day. 

Jimin was homesick. He was feeling tired of how everything was so different. No matter how much he tried to make himself feel settled, there was always something new he had to learn. It was not even his degree that he was worried about (that he was mastering). It was the people and the way they talked, walked and just lived.

"They say sorry when I step on the back of their shoe, Taehyung-ah!" Jimin had said, exasperated. "I never know when the right time is to laugh because their humour is just so unbelievably dry," he had sighed. "I don’t ever think I could fit in here."

"There is no way anyone could not love you. There is no such thing as a language barrier when you're as cute as Park Jimin," Taehyung had laughed. He really believed this. Jimin's charms transcended culture and language and everything else that separated people.

"I just can't wait to come home, and everything be just as I left it, I just ache for things to be the way it once was," Jimin said, he struggled to meet Taehyung's eyes. They were starting to fill with tears, Jimin looked up at the ceiling and blinked them away.

It gave Taehyung enough time to control his facial expressions. Tuck away the shame in his eyes that he felt knowing that their own home was now changed, not just by the casual furniture or the small paintings... but by a new living-breathing human being residing in it.

He couldn't tell Jimin today. Not when Jimin felt this way about change. 

As the months layered on top of each other, Yoongi became a small secret that he was hiding away. A small bulb of light he carried with him in his front pocket. The more time that the pair spent together, the fonder Taehyung grew of his little guardian angel. 

It took mere days for Taehyung to figure the older hyung out; he acted aloof and pretended to like spending time alone, but Taehyung noticed how his eyes grew warmer as soon as Taehyung walked into his room. How he moulded so nicely along Taehyung's chest as he hugged him. Taehyung grinned at how he was always the first one to let go, it was never Yoongi. The younger boy was determined to give as many hugs as possible, it was evident he was lacking them! 

Yoongi rang him in the mornings from his office to wake Taehyung up for his lectures... He knew of the nights when Taehyung cried himself to sleep at 4 a.m and would be unable to wake up without some extra help. He bought him extra painkillers for all the times Taehyung had punched a wall, unable to contain his anger at the longing he felt for Jimin. At the uncertainty of what they would be when Jimin returned. At how the seconds of each minute of each day felt like it was stretched across aeons without his lover. His anger manifesting in physical pain that Yoongi nursed without question.

And then one night the ache in his heart spread like cancer across his entire body. He saw it take flight across his blood and get to the tips of his fingernails and toes. The top of his head and the bottom of his soles. He hurt everywhere and he wanted it all to end.

He opened his bedroom door only to gasp out loud, Yoongi was sat leaning on it. He nearly fell into the room but got on to his feet as soon as he felt the shock of the door give away behind him. 

He found Taehyung's hand in the darkness and tugged at him to follow him to his room.

Without any words, Taehyung did as he was instructed. 

Taehyung tried not to think about how many nights Yoongi had preempted Taehyung's actions and sat guard at his door. He tried not to think of what he would have done if he was left to his free will.

Even whilst sleeping next to Yoongi's smaller frame, holding him like he was a tree branch on a stormy day, he cried for months, every night, for Jimin. And at this point telling Jimin about Yoongi was a no-go zone; he hated the idea of Jimin thinking of him as someone weak.

He shivered at the thought of Jimin thinking low of him; how Taehyung needed another human being to try and get over the pain Jimin had inflicted. That even though he was not the one studying abroad, with all its extra stresses, he was still the one who couldn't get over his own heartbreak. 

Yoongi grew to be a part of Taehyung without Taehyung even realising it. He was the only beam of light in the darkness that Jimin had sprinkled across his life like fine dust; clouding everything in sight. 

Of course, he loved Yoongi, how could he not after all this?

The entire ride home Taehyung struggled to keep his face neutral. To not show the fear that was gnawing at his insides. He was slowly being undone and he knew it was not right. He had faith in Jimin and himself; they were better than this. He was not going to give up on them.

His nervousness was palpable. He knew Yoongi could sense it because he kept on sliding his hand in Taehyung's, rubbing circles on his knuckles with this thumb. Trying his best to ensure that Taehyung did not erupt, to hold back the storm that was swirling within him.

Even though he had promised Yoongi he would give Jimin time and space to get back to what they once were; he could not help but follow Jimin into their shared bedroom once Yoongi shut the kitchen door behind him. 

He had to try again. He knew he ought to wait, to see what Jimin had in mind... and yet every second wasted as "friends" was weighing him down. He wanted every second of his life to be Jimin's lover, they had 3 years of time to make up for. 

Taehyung just wanted to feel Jimin, on him, in him, under him. Any way possible. He wanted his other half back. He was not a quitter, not when it came to Park Jimin. 

Taehyung glided into the room without a sound. Jimin was standing there, staring at the far wall. He took this moment to put his arms around Jimin and his heart grew a thousand times lighter because as if in reflex, Jimin leaned into him. 

He pressed himself against Jimin, he could feel the sensory receptors on his skin glow. He was an evening primrose; but rather than being closed off for the night it had been 3 long years for Taehyung. And now he was blooming once more.

He felt the colour return to his periphery, the candlelight of hope he had always had in his heart for Jimin's return as his lover was burning brightly once more. 

They would be okay. 

Taehyung was never going to let Jimin go.

He put his mouth dangerously close to Jimin's ears. "I missed you," he whispered, he let his words trace themselves across Jimin's neck and collar bone. Lingering. A soft kiss disguised in mere words. 

He heard Jimin shudder under him, and smiled, this is what he missed the most. The way Jimin gave himself away so easily under Taehyung. The control they had over the other was something to marvel at. He tightened his grip on Jimin’s waist; reminding him of just how good it felt to be this close.

He wished the room had been dark then. That the invention of electricity had never occurred. He wished he had not seen the expression on Jimin's face when he undid Taehyung's hands from around his hip. 

The expression on Jimin's face scratched itself into Taehyung's pupil, painfully; a bleeding portrait. Hung in the museum that was Taehyung's brain. Hunted. 

It was the first time Taehyung had seen disgust on Jimin's face because of something he had done. Because if not disgust then what was that expression? 

This was not the way Jimin was meant to react. 

In all the imaginations of what their reunion would be, Taehyung had never left space for disgust. That was not what two souls who loved each other felt. Pain? Yes. Anger? Of course. But that expression? No, no, no. Never that. 

Taehyung was crumbling. A sandcastle under the stomp of a mean older brother. 

This was never meant to happen. They had suffered their share of pain. Why did Jimin not see that? Why was Jimin hell-bent on continuing this nightmare that they had been trapped in for 3 years... All because of Jimin's selfish needs.

He thought he would not be bitter about the 3 lost years, and if Jimin had acted the way he was meant to, he would have forgiven him. He really would have. But the seedling of resentment he had harboured ever since Jimin had decided to leave was threatening to burst out again.

Taehyung knew if he let it grow it would end with an awful consequence. He was afraid of what he might do. He knew he was capable of the worst imaginable; his nightmares had taught him that if nothing else. 

He feared his own mind. Jimin needed to sort himself out. And soon.

Taehyung put a lid on his thoughts. This was no way to think... not now anyways. He had all the time in the world to think like that when he was away from Jimin's view. He needed to be perfect for Jimin. He had his lover to gain back... at all cost.

Jimin was speaking hastily, his words piling on top of each other, a classic Park Jimin example of being agitated or nervous.  But of what? They were the definition of best friends; they had once known every inch of each other; inside out.

Was this Jimin's way of conveying he was no longer comfortable with being boyfriends? That he wanted to pretend they could go back to being "platonic best friends". HA. As if such a thing was possible. 

Taehyung either wanted Jimin back as his lover or not at all.

He held onto Jimin's hands as he tried to reach his suitcase, even after that look on Jimin's face, he could not stop craving Jimin's touch. His entire body was bending in the direction of his former lover, a tree in the gusty winds of a storm.

He lied on the bed for a while, Jimin having rushed into the shower. He stared at the ceiling and smirked. "I won't let you escape this time…not again. We're going to work this out Jimin-ah, even if it means the end of me," he spoke softly to the empty room. 

He was used to speaking out loud in this empty room; since only himself had been allowed inside of it for the past 3 years. 

Some people would call it an obsession, but to Kim Taehyung he was just worshipping the boy he loved; this room being his temple.

He stared sideways at Jimin as he played with the food on his plate. Surely the food he had cooked with his hyung was delicious! It was all Jimin's favourite home-cooked dishes, he had called Jimin's mother a week before to get all the needed recipes. 

He would have never dared to attempt such a feat on his own, but Yoongi was an exceptional cook. He could re-create the most complex recipes and so the pair had been eating japchae and samgyeopsal dishes the entire week, attempting to make it perfect by the time Jimin arrived.

Jimin lying to Yoongi about not knowing anything about him made Taehyung’s faith in Jimin grow many folds. It was a very Jimin thing to do; saving Taehyung from embarrassment by blaming his bad memory on why he knew nothing about Yoongi. 

They both knew it was a lie, Jimin had an exceptional memory. Taehyung felt a warm glow to his cheek, his Jimin-ah was slowly returning to him.

As he should. 

Taehyung entered the bathroom, already knowing what he would find. Jimin had learnt the trick of turning the shower head on whilst crying from him after all. And Taehyung? From all the true-crime books he read. 

But they did not use it for crying. Oh no.

Just like he was meant to, as it was his duty; he knelt on the bathroom floor and held the love of his life as he cried. Jimin's sobs penetrated right through his flesh. Deep down all the layers of his skin. 

He wanted this to be the last time Jimin cried. It was hurting him to witness the pain of his lover. This was not meant to be the outcome of their reunion, but Taehyung was the one to blame. Because was Jimin not crying at how everything had changed in 3 years, even after he had said that was what he wanted the least? 

It was Taehyung's fault for allowing their home to be changed to this length, for having taken a tenant when all Jimin wanted was to return to an unchanged home. 

It was Taehyung's fault for changing as a human being. But he had had no choice in that matter. His circumstances had forced that onto him.

"Shhh, it's okay, it's going to be okay Jimin-ah," Taehyung whispered. Because of course, it was. There was no way anything would be wrong ever again. The two of them were going to work out their differences and return to normal, whatever that was. 

It was strange that Yoongi's presence could hurt Jimin to this length. But Jimin had always been possessive towards all his friends, Taehyung rationalised for himself. So, it did make some sense as to why Jimin felt this secret like a stab at his back. 

Taehyung kept on whispering sorry to Jimin as he held his crying frame close to his own. He closed all the gaps between them. He wanted no leeway for anything to ever get between the two of them. 

Taehyung was sorry for having kept Yoongi a secret from Jimin because surely that was why Jimin was crying. It had to be.

Taehyung could not sleep in the same bed as Jimin. His demons were screaming in his ears, he tried to shake them off. He had too many possibilities on his hands being alone in a room with Jimin. He would not trust himself next to an unguarded, sleeping Jimin; not this early anyway.

He undid Jimin's small hands from his own, slowly lifted his head onto the pillow from where it had rested on his lap until now. 

Every fibre of his being was calling to stay next to Jimin, to sleep next to the boy he loved; but alas, he could not trust his mind. Jimin needed sleep.

He stood over Jimin's sleeping body. Saw the way his hand now rested in a small fist on his stomach. How his chest rose and fell so beautifully. He was so in love with this beautiful creature he had once had the opportunity to call his own. 

He pressed a kiss to Jimin's forehead and exited the room without turning back. He knew he left his heart resting next to Jimin's; as it was meant to be.

When Taehyung woke up at 4 a.m, he was struggling to breathe. A sense of doom enveloped him. Yoongi's hand was covering his nose and mouth.

Suffocating him.

Chapter Text

Taehyung was clawing at Yoongi's skin. Nails dug deep. He could see stars at the back of his eyes; a second longer and he would die. He was sure of it. This was the end. Jimin would never even know his best friend was killed whilst he slept peacefully next door. He would never forgive himself. He would never go back to sleep. He had to live for Jimin's sake. 

He felt Yoongi's hand slip lower so that it was no longer covering his nose, only his mouth. Taehyung took some shallow breaths, returning to consciousness once more.

"Do you want Jimin to hear you Taehyung-ssi?" Yoongi's voice was covered in honey. It was meant to be soothing. 

Taehyung's tears pooled over where Yoongi's hand still covered his mouth. He watched them gather at the edge of Yoongi's thumb. 

He shook his head.

"Good boy," he cooed. "If I let go, promise me you won't scream." 

The younger boy nodded obediently. He knew it was his fault that Yoongi had to do this. It was for Taehyung's sake that he was forced to act mean. 

Yoongi was only doing what was best for all three of them.

Yoongi slid his hand off and lay back on his pillow. He sighed deeply. Taehyung gulped in as much air as he possibly could, rubbed at his tears with the back of his hand. 

Turning to yoongi he said, "I am so sorry hyung, I thought I was getting better, I-," he was crying again.

"If Jimin finds out about your night terrors, he will never sleep peacefully for the rest of his life. For his sake, just control yourself Taehyung-ssi," Yoongi sounded tired. 

He ought to be. Comforting Taehyung like this every night must be hard. 

He hated his mind. So much.

Taehyung traced his fingers along the marks on Yoongi's collar bone; it was his doing. He tried to ignore the way the older boy was staring at his lips. It was always the hardest thing to ignore; the way Yoongi's gaze pierced his soul. 

"I'm sorry," Taehyung whispered, he put the tip of his index finger on Yoongi's chest, he was sorry for the physical pain his nails had caused but more so for the pain that resided deep under the layers of Yoongi's skin. 

He could never give yoongi what he wanted. They knew that. They had both agreed on that.

It was one of the nights during the 13th month of Jimin being away that Taehyung had stopped crying for him. It was just a regular night; he was bracing himself for the onslaught of pain that clung to him with claws that were sharp and long. 

But nothing came. He squeezed his eyes. And yet they were dry.  

Yoongi and Taehyung normally slept in the middle of the bed, Taehyung clutched onto Yoongi and the rest of the bed empty, void of its use. But that night he had moved to the edge of the bed, he felt wrong. A little broken and not right. He slept.

Taehyung noticed the rays of sunshine dancing along the wall to his side of the bed first and the way Yoongi held him second. He tried to ignore it. 

He concentrated on the specks of dust that floated in the beam of light. He was determined to count them all. Anything to distract himself from the way Yoongi's hot breath was on his neck. 

One, two, three. How the smaller boy’s chest, stomach and legs felt pressing into himself. Four, five, six, seven. How fast Yoongi's heart was beating against his shoulder blade. Eight, eig- nine, ten, eleven.

Taehyung hated how much he liked this. He knew he shouldn't. But it would be a lie to say he was thinking of the boy pressed into him as Yoongi. Taehyung was imagining how good Jimin had felt around, alongside and inside of him. 

It was not fair on Yoongi, Taehyung knew that, and yet he pretended to be asleep for a little longer before he said, "…hyung." 

He knew it was wrong of him to be doing this, for himself, to Jimin (who had broken up with him, so it was not like he was doing anything wrong) and most of all to Yoongi. 

His hyung deserved better.

Yoongi rubbed his nose alongside Taehyung's neck. Taehyung felt himself unwind. He loved Jimin. He will always love Jimin. He could not change that. 

"I’m in love with you," Yoongi whispered. 

"I know," Taehyung replied. He felt yoongi sigh behind him. He had known for a while.

He appreciated that Yoongi had stopped himself from confessing for so long. It was a selfless act on Yoongi's part. He could not be more thankful for how much Yoongi thought about Taehyung's happiness before his own. 

And yet Taehyung could not do the same.

Maybe he was over the pain of how Jimin had abandoned him, without a thought. Maybe he was starting to dig out the roots of the resentment tree that was lodged in his gut. But that did not mean he had stopped loving Jimin. He was just covering a wound that Jimin had knifed into him.

But out of all three of them? Taehyung was the most selfish. He wiped off the grin on his face, so Yoongi wouldn't hear it in his voice: "Give me until Jimin comes back hyungie, if he really does want to be friends..." he left it at that. The older boy could fill in the gaps.

23 months later, Taehyung and Yoongi were in bed once more, the only difference was that now Jimin was back, sleeping peacefully in the other room. Unaware of all that Taehyung had on the line. 

The time he had bought from Yoongi was running out. Slipping like sand between his slender fingers. 

"Am I bad person hyung?" Taehyung asked, hoping to gain some sympathy from Yoongi. He needed to soften him up... just until Jimin gave in to him. 'This is all your fault Jimin, you little bastard,' he thought as he gazed up at Yoongi with tear-filled eyes.

Yoongi put his hands under Taehyung's armpits and yanked him up the bed so that their faces were aligned on the pillow. He felt like a fish being drawn from the sea. 

"Of course not, don't be silly now." 

How much of this was the truth? Taehyung wondered if Yoongi's circumstances also made him a good liar. But he bit his tongue. He needed someone to trust, and the boy in front of him was going to be his best ally. 

"And Jimin won't hate me for what I have become?" 

"If he does then he's the finest asshole this world has to offer." 

"He will understand why we do what we do, right?" 

Taehyung knew he sounded 4 years old at most. But his mind was his worst enemy. Self-doubt ate away at him like a caterpillar to lettuce. He was being emptied from the inside out, worm-like creatures crawling in his skull.

"You were the one who used to always gush about how your Jimin-ah understood you like no one else. How words didn't even matter when you two were so intrinsically connected, so I think you know the answer to that better than I do, little guy." 

And that broke the temperamental seal that Taehyung had placed with shaky hands to his eyes. 

Through the film of tears that clouded his eyes, he could see their past selves; an innocent younger version of himself and his lover. How their laughter erupted the empty field the two had cycled to, on a summer afternoon when napping seemed to be a waste of time. They had the entire world at their disposal. 

When they had each other; they were kings. 

Taehyung wanted a four-leaf clover, he was crunched on the ground, eyes straining amongst the greenery. He was determined to find one even if the two of them grew to a 100 in that field. They saw a future with each other after all. That was their way of expressing their love to each other; promises of a future where they grew old together. To them, this promise held the same meaning as 'I love you'...

Taehyung could hear Jimin's soft babbling, he never stopped talking. But Taehyung would not change it for the world. He could see him from the corners of his eyes; even through his intense concentration on finding the four-leaf clover. 

Jimin was laying on the ground, his arms spread wide, taking in the summer heat. Absorbing it like he was photosynthesizing. 

"If only you were a plant, maybe you could grow a little taller," Taehyung had joked. It had landed him with a kick to his butt leading him to lose his balance for a few seconds. He rocked back and forth on his heels regaining his concentration, only for Jimin to call out from a little far, "Taehyung-ah! Look what I found!" 

Taehyung jumped up so fast he saw sparks behind his eyelids; he was foolishly in love with the boy that was beckoning him closer; he trusted him with his entire life. If not more.

Jimin handed him the four-leaf clover and Taehyung accepted it blindly. He felt Jimin's hand around his waist and they started to walk towards their bikes that lay resting under the shade of an oak tree. They had once made the mistake of leaving their bikes unshaded and had vowed never to commit such a foolish act again. 

It took Taehyung 4 steps to realize he had been fooled. He heard Jimin's laughter first, and then his own. Jimin would alter the world for Taehyung if it gave Taehyung the tiniest bit of happiness & for that, he was eternally grateful.

Jimin pushed his nose into Taehyung's shoulder, clutched onto his arm, half of his body being thrown forward. Taehyung watched, as he always did, at how Jimin's eyes closed when he laughed. He had once said he could not see whilst laughing, so Taehyung made sure he stopped Jimin from walking into anything dangerous or falling off a chair when they were in class. 

Taehyung was never going to let Jimin go. Even if his life depended on it. 

He had been so sure of that...once upon a time.

“Taehyung-ssi, it’s okay, come on now,” Yoongi reassured him. Like he had done many times over the past 3 years. Taehyung had thought after Jimin's return he would stop aching like this, and yet it had proved to be all just a creation of his imagination. 

Imagination. 

He hated that word. There was too much of himself that resonated with those 11 letters. A lot more than he wanted to. 

If antiepileptic drugs did not work or the patient was non-compliant with their medication, and the risks were weighed, they usually did brain surgery to cure epilepsy. He wished he could be cured of his imagination in a similar way. To carve out his neocortex and thalamus like a pumpkin at Halloween. He would be better off without those terrible images and thoughts that flashed uncontrollably across his mind. A television with a broken remote.

He wouldn't remember much of the conversation of that night, only that he had begged Yoongi not to leave him just before he had fallen asleep. He had meant every word of it. He had once thought Jimin was the only one he would never be able to live without, but now things were different. For the better? No. But different they were, nonetheless. He could not change how his brain had been re-wired. What Jimin's departure that day 3 years ago had led him to become. 

Jimin had learnt a new culture and language; changed the grey matter surrounding his brain. He had become a person who was more equipped to lead an independent life... If only Taehyung could say the same. 

His change was quite the opposite. That thought left a bitter taste next to the honey-flavoured cereal he was chewing.

Taehyung heard the last part of Jimin's sentence like it was a bell ringing behind his ears. A little too loud for his liking. He could almost feel the words choking him, it was everything he did not want. 

“I want to go see some flats,” Jimin had said. But it sounded a lot more like 'I no longer see a future with you'. 

Taehyung had reacted without even realising. The coolness of Jimin's hand in his shocked him. But he could not let go. He bore down at Jimin, wishing for him to see just how big of a mistake this was. He had forgiven him once for leaving, he was not going to do it again. He was not going to let Jimin leave. No matter what price it came attached to; he was willing to make both of them pay for it. 

Taehyung wanted to give jimin a taste of what he was capable of, and so he flung Jimin's hand back with as much force as he could muster. He heard the gasp that left Jimin's beautiful lips, the ones he had tasted a thousand times in his teenage years, the ones he wanted to feel against his own once more. And compared the sound to the one he heard in his nightmares. It sounded familiar.

Taehyung counted to 3 in his head. Just like he had been taught. He chewed the insides of his right cheek; brought back physical pain to the front of his mind so that he would not let his emotions cloud him as Jimin told him, ever so easily, that things had now 'changed'.

'How is it even possible that he is breaking up with me for the second time even though we have not even gotten back together again?' Taehyung wondered foolishly. Was he that easy to let go off? That Park Jimin was doing it all over again? Was Taehyung's love for him some sort of retail purchase? Returned with an excuse that both parties knew was a lie. 

Jimin made taehyung feel cheap. As if all the aching and agony he had suffered because of him was not worth more than a dime to Jimin. 

Taehyung hated being treated so low. He was going to make Jimin regret this.

To start off; he lied through his teeth. Told Jimin he just wanted him back as his 'best friend'. He hated those two words just after 'imagination'. Even as he spoke it, it made him feel a little sick. 

But he couldn't scare Jimin away with how he truly felt... not so fast.

Taehyung was jealous of the sun, the way it could leave soft kisses on his lover whilst he had to resort to just staring. He could feel the way Jimin's sunbathed cheeks tasted against his lips even from where he sat. He gulped down the longing that rose like tidal waves against his chest. 

'Why can't you understand just how much I want you Jimin-ah?' he thought. 

He raised his hand and it hovered over Jimin's pink pillowy lips. He wanted to touch it once more. Feel the softness of it against his thumb. He lowered his hand back to his own lap.

His hands felt like they were out of his own remit of control, this was more like his nightmare than he wanted to admit. Before he knew it, it was resting on Jimin's cheek... he sighed inwardly at how much calmer he felt just at this simple gesture. 

But it only lasted a few seconds, because obviously Park Jimin hated anything that made Taehyung happy; Jimin moved away like he had been burnt with a lump of hot coal. Taehyung watched Jimin's eyebrows raise in question. Taehyung had never been more perplexed. 

'I want you back, how hard of an equation is that to solve?' 

It was raising a lot more doubts in Taehyung than he was sure he could put a lid on... was Yoongi right about Jimin having taken lovers whilst he was away? Jimin was a people person, he hated being alone even for a short amount of time, he whined and complained like a baby on having to spend a night alone. But he wanted to prove Yoongi wrong. Just like Taehyung had remained loyal to Jimin; he expected the same from him. Surely Jimin could not betray him like that? 

But again, he had been sure Jimin would take him back instantly, as soon as he arrived back home. That they would reunite with a kiss on the lips; drown in the taste of each other's mouth. Finally distinguishing the fire that had burnt continuously in Taehyung for 3 years. 

And yet he had been proven wrong on that matter.

As Jimin left the room, Taehyung squeezed his eyes shut. An image of blood pooling at his feet met him with open arms. To soothe him, control the war that was waging in his heart he counted to 10 and back again. The blood grew darker. 

He shook his head to dismiss it. Not yet.

Chapter Text

The worst goodbye for Kim Taehyung had been at age 6 because he had received no goodbye at all. He waited, with a backpack that was lighter than it had been in the morning; he had not been fussy today and had finished his lunch. He even ate the crust of his sandwich! He was a good boy! 

With a boxy grin adorning his face, he rocked back and forth just inside of the school gate. The teacher on duty was talking to one of the parents of an older child and from the face of said child, little Taehyung knew that the conversation was not going too well.

He kicked the acorn at his feet. It was not worth putting in his pocket, he had larger ones at home anyways. He didn't want to be scolded today. He craved the soft touch of his mother; her tired smile would be enough for him to live happily for the rest of his life. He loved her so so so much! 

The word “mother” was a diluted one to Taehyung. He tried hard to convince himself that the one he had had 2 years ago also came with the same soft brown curls and calloused fingers. The dimpled cheeks and hazy eyes. But he knew something was amiss. Their voices never seemed to match in the small region of his hippocampus; their "Taehyung!" always rang differently in his ears. 

But he fused them together. He had better things to focus on these days, like the Lego ship he had been making for over 2 months now. His hands fumbled at his side s and he missed the way the small pieces felt against his fingertips. The way they joined to form something larger, how each individual structure came to create a bigger picture... 

Except that when his teacher ushered him to a new car, with a stranger he had never met, he didn't even bother questioning it. He saw his suitcase packed in the backseat and the awkward smiles of 3 adults, two of whom would become his new parents. 

Had his mother been too tired to say goodbye to him? How come she had forgotten to pack his Lego ship? She never forgot that. She packed it when they went shopping, let Taehyung carry it to the swimming pool, and it was the only thing he had brought to his show-and-tell for the past 8 weeks.  His classmates being able to see the gradual development of something Taehyung had created.

When he knocked on the bedroom door to his mother and told night after night that she was "tired", Taehyung would cling onto his teddy. It was not actually a bear, but a yellow dog wearing a hoodie that his mother had won at a funfair for him. He would twist the strings around his tiny fingers, the same ones his mother praised for their beauty. 

"If you had my DNA you would have gotten these chubby ones instead," she would say. And amidst the tickling and giggles, Taehyung would forget to ask what DNA was and why it separated the two of them for another day.

It would be in his first year of high school biology class when the same words would greet him once more. His tiny fingers were now slender and beautiful in other ways. His mind sharper, more from experience than anything else. 

He watched the rest of his classmates, their innocence like a bubble wrap enclosing them. 

His had been pierced and broken into for a while now. He was superior, a lot older for his age than he needed to be. He was the child that the teachers spoke in whispers about in the staff room. Not as easy to fool as the rest of the herd.

Only that 11-year-old Park Jimin, with chubby cheeks and almond eyes, came with emollient pressed into the palms of his hands. He would heal every inch of Taehyung, put a seal into all the little cuts that the world had borne onto Taehyung's consciousness. 

He would learn to be a child again. 

It was easier to forget the abuse he had heard launched at his back when he left the house for school as he listened to Jimin's laughter. His shoulders ached less when Jimin's head rested on it. Breathing came easier when he heard Jimin's "Taehyungie is mine!"

Finally, he belonged. 

Taehyung tried not to cry on the phone to his mother the first afterschool that Jimin asked him over to his house. His mother had been reluctant, but she must have heard the yearning in Taehyung's voice and had agreed. It was going to be the start of a new routine. 

He did not mind that Jimin's parents must know he was a foster child, used to being passed along from family to family like a supermarket cashier passing along the groceries. He tried not to get used to anything, except Park Jimin, who kept on telling everyone that Taehyung belonged to him and for once he let himself drown in that reassurance. 

He submerged his head deep into the ocean that was Jimin. Did not care about his burning lungs; he was going to live if Jimin was there to call him his own. 

As long as he was Jimin's, he was king.

They were sat, feet soaked in the river water, ice lollies in hand and a packet of them by their side. Taehyung watched as Jimin dug into the algae with his toes, soaking up the spring sun. He was a flower, Taehyung thought, a beautifully blossomed one with healing properties.

They had only been friends for a few months and yet Taehyung was being sewn up from the inside out. All the missing parts of himself filling up with the warmth that Jimin infused into him. 

Even from those early months, Taehyung knew that if he kept Jimin with him long enough, he too would have a chance again at whatever was known as "childhood". He was determined to find out. 

But more importantly, he had someone to give all the love that overflowed inside of himself, aching for a recipient. He had a Jimin to hand it all to, brand new and well packaged. 

He had never managed to keep any of his family members for too long, but maybe this was different. Maybe this time he would not be left with a thousand questions of "what did I do wrong this time?" or "why am I so unlovable?" or "why does no one talk to me?"

"Why did you choose me?" Taehyung asked, softly touching his feet to Jimin's, messing with the same piece of algae together. Jimin kicked him off as if to say, 'Back off, mine!' 

"Choose you?" 

Taehyung could feel Jimin turn to him, could already anticipate the way his eyes widened in question. 

On the first day of school, Taehyung had watched Jimin magically appear in class, he had run in that fast. His cheeks and ears were dipped in red. He put his hands on his sides and took deep breaths. It was a habit of Jimin's to be late, something he would not lose for years to come. 

He had scanned the room, left to right and then back again. Taehyung had seen this small boy with a huge backpack and even bigger cheeks look at him and then nod. He had decided. Before Taehyung could take in what had happened, Jimin was already sitting next to him. 

"Oh!" Jimin beamed at Taehyung now, he licked the water that was dripping off the ice lolly onto his hands. "I don’t know, it just felt right." 

"Right?" 

"Umm hmmm," Jimin would give Taehyung an eye smile. Recently turned 12, he had not yet learnt how to articulate the feeling in his gut, the one that had drawn him to his soulmate. 

Taehyung would learn of this years later when Jimin finally grasped onto his feelings enough to whisper them to Taehyung in the darkness of the night, the other's heartbeat loud in their ears.

At 14, Jimin, who had only known happiness and warmth until now, who believed the world to be a place where monsters only existed in movies, who saw the glass as half full than empty, would tug onto Taehyung's hand and place him at the edge of his bed.

With unsteady hands, he would rid Taehyung of the black blazer they wore to school. Undo each of the buttons that held together Taehyung's white full-sleeved shirt, his fingertips burning in an agony he knew he had no right to feel. Taehyung was the one who was hurt.

He would stifle the gasp that threatened to burst forth at the image in front of him. Taehyung would not like to be pitied. 

It would be the start of a change in Park Jimin. 

He would push Taehyung, gently, so he was leaning slightly back. Kiss each of the bruises that lined Taehyung's sides. A tear falling at each kiss. 

Jimin would steady himself by holding onto Taehyung's hips. Anchor himself. A new sort of pain taking root deep down into his cells. He would gulp down a fresh wave of sobs that gushed through him. 'Was the world this cruel?'

Unable to go on, to comprehend just how much harm the world had already caused to the boy he loved, in a way he was still trying to stick a label to and being unable to. 

He would bury his face in his hands, ashamed of how naive he had been. How he had never thought anyone had any different of an upbringing to the loving home he came from. 

Jimin felt the world crumbling around him for the first time. He was suffocating in the ashes of a perfect world he had previously lived in. It was lining his trachea & threatening to burrow down into his bronchioles. He could feel his airways narrowing, constricting any effective flow of air. 

He dug his face deeper into his hands, wanting to disappear. For his bedroom floor to swallow him, to save him from the anguish of knowing Taehyung had never known the happiness he had known. He felt guilty for ever having been happy. 

How could he have gone through his life so merrily whilst Taehyung had suffered beside him? 

Taehyung would pull him to bed with him, hold the Jimin he once knew break into smaller pieces in his arms. He had tried to protect him, but he was only human, he could only do so much. 

"My mother," Taehyung could not put a finger on which one, they had all fused into one by now, "had taught me to make wishes on shooting stars, and without ever knowing of your existence, I prayed for you."

Jimin had tears trickling down his neck. He was a shell of the boy who had woken up that morning, carved out of his innocence, the thing that was so truly his own. 

"I feel so helpless Taehyung-ah." 

"All I have ever wanted was to be comforted, to have someone as my own. Just stay by me, and I will endure everything for the rest of my life with a smile." Jimin turned to face Taehyung, rubbed their noses together, softly. "Please never leave me Jimin." Their tears mixed where their noses aligned. 

A promise made; one that Jimin would break.

Chapter Text

"Your boyfriend saw me swap my pocketknife from my denim jacket to the leather one; he looked white as a ghost," Yoongi said, staring at the TV and grinning. 

His feet were resting on the coffee table. He was looking for something suitable to watch but could not make up his mind.

"Hyungggg," Taehyung whined. Jimin and his relationship were not yet determined, because to Jimin, Taehyung's feelings were some sort of joke. But Yoongi liked to tease him anyways. 

It was the second full day of Jimin being back home. His head rested in Taehyung's lap, his body curled up in a small ball. His hands were in tight fists at his chest. 'He's adorable.' 

"Has he not asked you about it?" Yoongi asked, turning to flick a gaze at Taehyung, only for it to linger on how peaceful Jimin looked asleep. 

"No, not yet." 

Taehyung was scared, scared of how he would explain what was going on to Jimin. What words he would use. He was still practising at writing the perfect script. He had not mastered it yet. 

He needed a bit more time. The past 3 years had changed him in ways he himself was afraid of, so how was he to know Jimin would not be fearful too? That he would not walk away? He knew the bond the pair had was stronger than anything else in the world... and yet the uncertainty lingered. 

He looked at Jimin's sleeping face. He deserved better than to live the rest of his life in the apprehension of what was to come. 

Yoongi sighed and pushed himself off the sofa. The array of choices was too much for his simple mind; there was nothing he could fix himself on. He usually gave Taehyung the task of choosing what to watch, but today he was past that too.

As Yoongi walked behind where Taehyung sat, the younger boy reached out and held him back by the wrist. He slowly lowered his hand until their fingers were intertwined and gave a soft squeeze. 

His eyes still rested on the sleeping boy's face in his lap, the calmness of it. He could not imagine harm coming to him. 

"You would never hurt him, right?" Taehyung asked, already knowing the answer to his question and yet needing confirmation. 

He turned around to look at Yoongi's face now. The older boy looked as tranquil as Taehyung wanted to feel and yet had not reached. Yoongi was always a few steps ahead of him in everything. Taehyung was jealous that he had levelled up to a pocket knife whilst Taehyung was still stuck on a plastic one. But his time would come, Yoongi had reassured him of it many times.

"Not if I can help it," Yoongi replied. 

His gummy smile was magnificent in the late afternoon's glow. It struck Taehyung's heart and pulled at his tendons. His own face reflected the image in front of him, only that his smile was all teeth. 

He breathed a sigh of relief.

It was enough for him. Because for people like Yoongi and Taehyung, this was more than a promise. 

Yoongi leaned over and tousled Taehyung's hair with his free hand and he melted into the touch.

'Everything is going to be okay. We will all be okay,” he comforted himself.

Jimin's habit of laying his head in Taehyung's lap was a daily one. It was something that had started when they were still teens and Taehyung was relieved to find that Jimin still felt comfortable in doing so to this date. 

At the age of 15, Taehyung recollected, Jimin's face had been a lot rounder, his jawline hidden and his nose the most prominent feature. But his eyes had remained the same ever since; the same comforting glow that was able to ignite a fire in Taehyung's cold body and give him the warmth he needed to carry on.

"I want to live with you Jimin-ah," the 15-year-old Taehyung had whispered. 

He had practised saying this to Jimin for a long while. It caught at his throat and ached on its way out. It was the one thing he wanted the most. 

Jimin was playing with a strand of grass he had plucked, twirling it between his fingers. His hair was catching the autumn sun's glow, but it was not cold enough for the duo to skip their nearly-everyday park date. 

Taehyung loved greenery the same way Jimin loved the water, which was a lot. No one really understood the way these two forces of nature made the two teenage boys feel. They themselves struggled to explain it. They just knew their souls grew lighter and that was enough for Taehyung to drag Jimin to the park every day and for Jimin to pull Taehyung into a swimming pool or lake at every given opportunity.

The first time they had kissed underwater, Taehyung had engulfed more into his airway than was safe and yet had fought the urge to come up for air; he knew it was everything Jimin had ever dreamt of doing since the pair had started dating. 

He would die for Jimin's happiness.

When they did finally come up for air, Taehyung had a second to gasp in as much of it as possible, because before he knew it, Jimin was dragging him back under again. Just like he knew he would. 

Over time they did perfect it. Taehyung was okay with his lungs being on fire each time they kissed because he got to witness the glow in Jimin's eyes that he only gained after being submerged in water for a period of it. Water had the same effect on Jimin, that Jimin had on Taehyung: of healing.

"Me too!" Jimin answered. He was beaming up at Taehyung now, the strand of grass in his hand being split in two. He was making Taehyung a ring. "We could have one room to play games in, and a swimming pool in another! You know what, Taetae? I would sleep on a sofa in the living room for the rest of my life if it meant we could have our own swimming pool! We could-" 

Taehyung watched as Jimin babbled on. He sighed inwardly. This was not going to be easy. They were just so different. Jimin had been the reason why he had had a second chance at a childhood, where he found it easy to forget everything the world hurled at him and regain the innocence that Jimin exhaled into his surrounding s. 

But it was not enough to wipe everything clean. That would be more than a miracle that he knew his fate had not written for him.

"-No Jimin. I’m serious." 

Jimin stopped short. He cocked his head to the side so that the back of it was pushing into Taehyung's knee. 

"Like, as soon as possible."

Jimin bit his lower lip. Taehyung understood this was way out of the scope of his imagination.

Jimin's life was made up of five things: Taehyung, his family, dance, school, and games. In that exact order. He knew glimpses of Taehyung's life and ached for him. But he knew that he was helpless. Jimin did the one thing he could for Taehyung:  be there for him.

"We're just kids, Taehyung-ssi," Jimin said. 

Taehyung wanted to laugh at how rueful Jimin's eyes looked. 

"Not now silly, I  know we are," Taehyung reassured Jimin, pulling tight the blanket of comfort that Jimin was always swaddled in. 'Or more specifically, I know you are,' he added to himself. 

"My social worker can get me a job, us unfortunate kids have connections you see," Taehyung laughed now. He saw Jimin look hurt at Taehyung degrading himself, so he stopped. He bent down and kissed Jimin's forehead to say 'Sorry, I won't do it again.'

"There is a charity," Taehyung continued, his hands finding Jimin’s, “that helps foster kids to be more independent. They know we need it." Jimin scrunched his face again, so Taehyung stopped and reconstructed his sentences; he always had to be kinder to himself in front of Jimin.

"But we have school. My dad said work is or when we're older." 

"Legally, since I’m under 16 I can only work 12 hours during term time, so you won't even notice it, I promise." 

"Since you can’t skip school or dance practice, it means you will work into our evenings and weekends," Taehyung could see Jimin doing the calculations in his head of the 24 hours in their normal day. And yes, it would impact their time together, but Taehyung was thinking of their future. 

He had to ensure they were both on the same track. He couldn't really plan for a future without the most important factor: his Jimin. 

"There are some jobs that have the worst timings, like food warehouses; if I get a job there, I can be at yours by 9 a.m for breakfast on a Saturday!" 

Taehyung had done his research; he was going to make it work. He was not going to sacrifice his time with Jimin more than necessary. Even if it meant he was waking up at 3 a.m. to get to his job. He could do without sleep if it meant a more desirable future with the love of his life.  One of them had to give in, and he had decided it was him.

"So, you've decided you're getting a job?" 

Taehyung nodded. "Legally, the earliest I can move out is the day I turn 18, and even if I can't move out on the 30th of December, I want it to be soon after. Like, as soon as possible." 

Jimin looked pained. "Is it that bad, Taehyung?" His eyes were filling with tears. His eyelashes a subtle barrier before they escaped onto his face. 

"No, no, no, it's not that bad at home, trust me. This is the longest I have lasted with a family. I love them, I do." Taehyung was telling the truth; it felt good to, because who else could he be so plainly open to but Jimin? His best friend, his lover and the person he was to grow old with. 

"I just want to live with you super bad, like disgustingly bad. As in I'm desperate. You should be glad to have such a loving boyfriend!" Taehyung joked, he bent down to rub their noses together. 

He saw Jimin smile, even whilst being so close to his face, so he took the opportunity and kissed him softly. He knew Jimin would take over, so when Taehyung felt Jimin tug upwards and tangle his arms around his neck, he too smiled.

"You think we will have enough to move out at 18?" Jimin said, resting his head back on Taehyung's knee. Settling down once more like a child after being patted whilst asleep. 

"Oh my god..." Taehyung burst into laughter, "Jimin-ssi! We're not buying a house!"

Jimin pouted. 

"We will rent the cheapest place in the city;  the only thing the damn place needs is a roof and I’m sold. It could have broken walls and dented doors and I still wouldn't care. As long as I have you, it's all going to be okay."

On the second weekend of Taehyung's job, he felt a poke at his side. It was 4 a.m and he was in a freezing cold warehouse packaging bags of groceries for lazy rich people who didn't have enough time to go shopping. He wondered if he could give up his sleep after all.

He screamed when he saw a puffy-eyed Jimin standing next to him. 

Jimin yawned, swayed back and forth in the way people half-asleep do. "I hate you for this," he said as he pulled Taehyung into a kiss. 

Of course, Jimin wasn't going to let Taehyung do this alone. 

He smiled.

It was the third day of Jimin's return; Taehyung was in the kitchen, knuckles deep into a bowl of flour. It was the weekend and Taehyung thought the trio could do with some warmly baked cakes. He had been a hundred per cent sure Jimin would follow him, sit on the stool and watch.

But he had been wrong because Jimin stayed sat with Yoongi in the living room, both of their noses deep into their phones. 

Taehyung didn't like that. It made him queasy. He was too scared of what could come up... or out. Jimin was alluring, no one was safe from his charms. One bashful look or eye smile and he knew Yoongi would be spilling his guts to Jimin. 

He knew the pair had a lot to discuss, but he wanted to do it himself. He loved Yoongi, but he needed to tell some things to Jimin himself; it's what Jimin would want anyways. He would be so furious, raise hell if everything was not worded just perfectly. And only Taehyung knew how to string his words in ways that would curl around Jimin like a soft blanket rather than a rope. 

So he kept his ears tuned to the living room. He felt his insides coil. He was sweating even though it was the end of summer and nearing the start of autumn. The mornings were growing cooler and the days shorter. 

He tried to smile at Jimin gushing about his time abroad. How London had been a dream. About wanting to go back one day. How at first, he had felt like a sore thumb, but as the months piled on he grew more attuned to what the city needed. 

"As long as you keep your head down and walk super-fast, you can fit right in!" Yoongi laughed. "You just have to pretend to be busy and rushing all the time, it’s just how everyone is."

Taehyung could imagine the glow to Jimin's eyes as he said this. He was always so vibrant when he spoke about something he loved. His hands flying about, his cheeks reaching the corners of his eyes, his sounds a little blurred. 

Taehyung sighed. He was a fool in love.

'When will you realise, I want everything as it was before you left,  Jimin-ah?' Taehyung thought, wilfully. Wishing his thoughts could sprout wings and travel to Jimin's heart, change it for the better. For the possibility where Jimin too loved Taehyung.

He could only wish.

As Jimin chattered on, Taehyung lost himself in his voice. He saw all the mornings where Jimin grumbled in the morning about not wanting to get up, how Taehyung had to strip the blankets off because 'we still have to go to school, you ass!' Sometimes Jimin would sit up... try to peel his eyes open, only to lay back down and curl up. He would only get up at the last second, no matter how hard Taehyung tried to rouse him. 

Normal people woke up their boyfriends with soft kisses, ones that felt as light as butterfly wings resting on your lips. Not Taehyung; he went in with full tongue and teeth. Anything to get Jimin to get out of bed and not make the duo late for the fourth time that week. 

Sometimes, it resulted in Jimin alluring Taehyung to bed once more, pulling on the invisible rein that clung to Taehyung's neck.

The thing about Park Jimin was that he gave you the choice;  he pressed the coin into your palm and let you feel in control. A lie. Jimin always had what he wanted in mind, Taehyung just had to say yes, and he would see the world in just the exact shades that Jimin painted it in.

And it was always beautiful. It was exactly what Taehyung had craved but could not have put the right words to. Jimin knew the parts of Taehyung's mind and soul that he himself feared. And yet Jimin worshipped every part of Taehyung. 

Made Taehyung his muse.

And then he screamed. A shrill cry. It felt as uncomfortable as grinding one's teeth on sand. 

Yoongi and Jimin both ran into the kitchen. Taehyung wanted to laugh at how opposite they looked. Jimin was crimson in colour, all his veins dilated. Blood gushing to the surface of his skin. Taehyung shook away the image of blood that his mind perpetually related to Jimin. He knew it was wrong. 

Yoongi, on the other hand, looked like a 21st-century vampire. His normally pale skin stripped from any colour that was vaguely associated with it.

"What happened?" they were both saying, talking over each other, anything to get Taehyung to reassure them that he was okay. 

Jimin was surveying the kitchen, checking for any hazards, but Yoongi knew better; his focus was on Taehyung's hands. Which were still covered in flour.

Taehyung levelled his voice out. ‘Put some emotion in it Kim,' he prepped himself. 

"I saw a rat," he said, made himself small, huddled closer to Yoongi. He noticed the way Jimin withdrew to himself a little. He wondered why. Was he scared of rats now? Did Britain have none?

"Oh, for fuck’s sake Taehyung," Yoongi exhaled, "out of the three of us, you are the one who's lived in this shit hole the longest, why are you scared of them? I swear you named three of those bastards!" 

"Hyung, this one was actually really big!" 

"I’m sure it was," and with the roll of his eyes, he stalked out to rejoin his beloved,  the sofa. 

Jimin chuckled, "We have had these friends in our house since we moved in, I can't believe you're still-," Jimin was shaking his head, laughing, "-scared of them." 

Taehyung had never feared rats. It was not a luxury he could afford with the childhood he had been gifted. 

He had lost himself too deeply in the recollection of his past life with Jimin; the one where they had loved each. Had failed to keep track of the conversation between Jimin and Yoongi until it was too late. 

"Where did you and Taehyung meet,  hyu-?" Jimin had barely finished his sentence before Taehyung knew he had to stop them. This was not the right time. It was too early. He needed Jimin to settle down before he lay his palms face up for him to read. So, he screamed.

He had no other option. Not enough time for him to walk in and interrupt. For him to call either "Hyung" or "Jimin". Those took more seconds than screaming did. That came very naturally to Taehyung. His nightmares were filled with it and they had started to seep into his reality.

“What do you mean Jimin doesn’t know about me?” Yoongi’s face looked more bitter from the way Taehyung sat in front of him, all small and regretful, than the iced Americano he had ordered and was sipping through a metal straw. 

“I didn’t tell him about you,” Taehyung wished the sofa would open up and engulf him whole. 

“There is nothing to tell about me!” it was hard to get Yoongi angry, but Taehyung was managing it with quite a lot of excellence. “We did nothing in those 3 years that you need to disclose to him.”

“I know we didn’t,” Taehyung looked at his hands now. “I mean that he didn’t know you were staying in our house all this time.” Or more correctly, ‘that you existed at all,’ he added to himself. He closed his hands on his lap, dug his nails into his palms, enjoyed the feeling of it.

Yoongi spluttered on his next sip, Taehyung felt sprinkles of it landing near his face. It was still very cold; Yoongi ordered his drinks with a lot of ice. 

“You what?” was all that Yoongi managed. His eyes were double their size, he sounded a little out of breath.

"I never told him that you moved in at all,” it sounded awful now that he was speaking it out loud, dirtying the air with his secrets. 

“How on earth did you go nearly 3 years without telling him that I moved in?” Yoongi was wiping his mouth down with the edge of his sweater. He reached over and softly patted Taehyung’s cheeks dry too. 

Even amidst Yoongi’s disbelief, he still managed to think about Taehyung. And yet, he had strung Yoongi along for the past 23 months. Given him hope that if things didn't work out with Jimin, they could have a future.

He felt sick at himself for being so cruel, and yet, he could not let Yoongi go. There was no way he was going to get through life without both. Even if it went against all his morals. 

He was a man hanging loosely from a vine that was already cracking in more than one place.

Even if Jimin did finally come back to his senses and take Taehyung back, Taehyung would keep Yoongi close by. He knew Yoongi needed him just as much. He was sure Yoongi would be able to go on as friends. Wasn't that what they had been until now?

They had had this conversation before. It was always as a joke, between doing the dishes or hauling up their groceries to the seventh floor when their lift broke down, which was more often than not. Taehyung avoided the lifts like the plague, he was too scared it would stop short and force him to be locked in a metal box for an extended period of time… Yoongi took the lift even when it made that creaking sound that said the end was near and a call to the landlord was due. 

“I swear, Taehyung-ssi,” Yoongi would say, stopping every 3 steps on the way to their flat, “you better not make me feel like a third wheel when your boyfriend gets back!" 

“I’ll pretend he’s invisible whenever the three of us are together!” Taehyung would reply, looking over his shoulder and throwing Yoongi a smile, it was more to encourage him to not sit down than anything else. 

Yoongi was not unfit; oh no, he just really disliked moving a lot. Taehyung knew very well that he wanted to be a rock in his next life, and Taehyung had promised to carry Yoongi in his pocket and show him all the beautiful places that the world held. 

“Good, I don’t need another reason to be scared of going to prison for a murder case.” I t was an inside joke that would make Taehyung laugh so much that he would stop on the next landing and wait till Yoongi caught up.

“Are you sure can get over me, hyungie?” Taehyung would tease, reverting to his cheeky self. “I got over my first love, I think I can get over you,” he would wink and Taehyung knew it was true. Yoongi was what Taehyung aspired to be: the type of strong that could move mountains.

He would get over Taehyung… it would all be okay. The three of them would be okay. That was what he had believed back then anyways. 

Taehyung, amidst fleeting glances at Yoongi and even more at his feet, had explained all of the reasons why he’d kept Yoongi a secret to Jimin.

His tongue felt tied with a rope, double knotted and all. He hated how much he valued what Yoongi thought of him. This was harder than he had imagined. 

But, as usual, Yoongi proved to be the best ally. 

“That’s really fucked up Taehyung,” he said, his voice deep with concern, and then his face split into a grin, “but with half the things that go on in my head, I don’t even have the rights to judge you.” 

He reached over and squeezed Taehyung's shoulder. “I'm going to nap and pray that when I wake up everything you just told me would have dissolved alongside my tiredness.” And with that, he covered his eyes and a handful of minutes later, Taehyung could hear the deep breathing that occupied Yoongi’s unconscious state. 

Taehyung got up before his mind showed him yet another way, he could harm the vulnerable sleeping boy.

Over the next few days, Taehyung felt Yoongi reach for his hand more than usual. But again, he was more nervous than before with Jimin being around. He wondered if it was all in his head how Yoongi held on longer to every hug that Taehyung initiated...just like everything else.

Chapter Text

It had been a week since Jimin had returned. 

Taehyung watched Jimin scream; he could feel himself being dragged forward with him. The fear in Jimin's eyes was something he would remember until his very last days.

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

He wanted to live.

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. 

“But I am in love with you,”  Taehyung was saying, afraid that Jimin wasn’t registering the words, the panic plainly written across his face.

Taehyung felt the blood in his veins stop in its track and he loosened his grip on Jimin's hand. 

Only to re-adjust it and pull Jimin into his arms, where Jimin belonged.

He stepped back and pushed himself to the wall on his right, so Jimin knew they were aligned with something solid; something that would not give away. 

As Taehyung held Jimin tightly to his chest, he smiled; the sun had finally risen. It was a brand new day.

The concept of time was skewed to Jimin; he had just seen death right in the face and yet managed to evade it. It was not something he could file in any of the boxes of his brain. There really was no place for such a thing.

And so, the images swam in Jimin’s head until he felt like it was all he was going to see for the rest of his life. 

Taehyung held onto a shaking Jimin, clung to him with a promise of never letting go. “But I am in love with you,” he whispered over and over again, as softly as the clouds in their shades of yellow and oranges. He knew Jimin could not hear him. Could feel Jimin’s heart hammer against his own chest. I t was trying to escape and enter his own rib cage; he would willingly let it.

Jimin dug his foot onto the floor of the balcony. He needed to remind himself what solidity felt like. He pushed forward into Taehyung’s body, to know that the wall behind them was going to stay there. The aftertaste of fear still swirled in his mouth and his nostrils filled in with the smell of Taehyung’s body; he filled his lungs with it. He could still see himself falling, but the image was not as overpowering as before. He was calming down. 

His brain was finally cleaning up behind the tornado of emotions and hormones that had been released to try and save him. The adrenaline was being mopped up and he was starting to breathe again. And he could hear Taehyung’s “but I am in love with you” in his ears... and knew he was going to live.

Jimin lifted his head away from Taehyung’s neck. Their eyes met, and for the first time, they both saw the homes they had built in each other since their teenage years. They had been through a lot, but it was going to be okay because just like they were meant to, they had found their way back to each other. 

“I love you too,” Jimin uttered. And just like before, Taehyung felt himself heal of all the wounds of the past 3 years. He felt whole for the first time since Jimin had left.

Taehyung pressed his forehead to Jimin’s, and Jimin tilted his face so that their noses were touching. They stayed like that; breathing each other in. Trying to piece together the puzzles of the past week, of everything that went so horribly wrong. Of what could have just occurred.

Their first kiss in 1095 days felt just as they had both imagined it to and even more. 

Jimin dug his nails into Taehyung’s shirt, his head swimming in a thousand feelings, each more prominent than the last. Taehyung felt the same way he did when he sat under a tree and cast his eyes out to everything that was green and alive; he felt connected with the world once more. He found his roots in Jimin’s being. This was probably their gentlest kiss; both having left their former teenage shells in the past.

As adults, they were more caring, attuned in the way the other moved more than themselves. It was a kiss that said, ‘I lost you once, but never again.’ 

When they broke away, Jimin looked at Taehyung, his lips quivered, “I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?” 

“Of the past week, of what just happened,” Jimin did not let his gaze falter away from Taehyung’s, as he said, “...of you.”

As gently as holding a newborn kitten, Taehyung led Jimin inside by the hand. The kitchen was bathed in the soft white lights of the new morning. 

“Here,” Taehyung said, handing Jimin a glass of water.

It was at Jimin’s "Do you see a future with him?” that Taehyung had realised his mistake. The penny dropped and every one of Jimin’s actions over the past week finally made sense; Jimin had gotten the wrong end of the stick and thought that he and Yoongi were dating. Because since the start of his and Jimin’s relationship, the promise of a future had always meant more than “I love you”. This was Jimin asking him where his priorities lay.

Taehyung wanted to confirm that what he had finally come to conclude was right, and decided to tell Jimin that yes, yes, they did want to grow old together. He did not imagine what would come next; if he had thought there was a risk to Jimin’s life by one of his sentences, then he would have remained mute for the rest of his life. He was never going to let harm come to Jimin. 

No matter how many times Taehyung’s brain showed him images of him hurting himself or someone he loved, he knew he was better than that. He had been learning to overcome his imagination, the one caused by his illness. 

“Why is the balcony’s barrier gone?” Jimin asked. He needed to know what the reason behind his near-death experience was. It was only rational he’d ask.

Taehyung sighed; he knew there was no evading Jimin now. His determination could be heard in the way he enunciated his words, the way his eyes looked like it was ready to burst into flames.

“I got diagnosed with harm OCD  soon after you left. I met Yoongi-hyung at my therapist's office. We’re both enrolled in the same exposure therapy; it’s why you saw him with a pocket knife the other day.”

Taehyung watched Jimin take the information in, store it somewhere safe. 

"But the barrier of the balcony?” he asked once more. He was sat at the edge of his chair, still unable to relax fully. Taehyung wondered how long it would take for Jimin to finally find his peace.

“That one side was loose from the hinges at the corners and was already coming off, we called the landlord a few times, but he never bothered with it,” Taehyung explained. The council never came to check their side of the city for their safety regulations anyways, and thus, the landlord had not cared to fix it. “So, Yoongi-hyung took it off completely.” 

Since the balcony lay at the back of the house, no one had seen the missing third side, no stranger passing by with curious eyes could have pointed it out as something abnormal, if such a word did exist in Taehyung and Yoongi’s lives. And so, they had been left to their own will with it.

“What use was that?” Jimin was aghast; that was not going to help anyone! But he tried to keep his cool. He knew he had to remain calm for Taehyung,  this was no easy topic to discuss.

He could see it in the way Taehyung was fidgeting with his hands on the table. His eyes never darting anywhere higher than Jimin’s chin. He felt for his Taehyungie, wanted to comfort him, but he himself was agitated beyond imagination.

“Our therapy is based on exposing us to risks. It increases in its severity to help our brains understand the meaninglessness of our fears associated with harmful thoughts and objects. My therapist says it’s a way for our minds to voluntarily create the same simulations that we normally have involuntarily due to our diagnosis.”

Taehyung had memorised every leaflet he had gotten from his consultant; he had an exceptional memory and could reiterate it front to back by now, he had read it that many times. Seeking answers, he knew was not there.

Jimin waited. He let the comfortable silence envelop them in its embrace. He was not going to rush Taehyung, not when he was finally talking. It had taken them long enough to get here as it was.

“Yoongi-hyung’s biggest fear has always been that he would jump from a height or push someone else from it. He decided to prove to himself that it was truly all in his head, that he would do no such thing even though he had the opportunity to do so; the balcony being something he had access to daily and yet he managed to control himself. He’s closer to recovery than I am, his mind no longer produces the same emotional distress due to heights like it used to.”

“Wait, I thought the reason why you didn’t tell me about Yoongi-hyung was that you two were dating, why didn’t you tell me about him if you were just friends?” Taehyung watched Jimin’s eyes narrow. His brows met in the middle of his face, furrowed in confusion.

After Taehyung had stopped talking, Jimin pushed the water glass towards him. 

“You really thought I would think that low of you? Wow Taehyung, time has changed you. I thought we were best friends.” He didn’t sound angry, just disappointed to his utmost.

“It was stupid, the secrets kept piling on top of one another until I didn’t know my left from my right, I’m sorry,” Taehyung pressed his hands to the glass until his knuckles grew white.

Jimin reached over and wrapped his own hands against Taehyung’s. Maybe if he had come back over the three years, they could have avoided this entire thing. He had not thought himself or Taehyung strong enough for that sort of ordeal though, of them pretending like everything was normal only for Jimin to board a plane and leave Taehyung broken once more. 

Jimin had always known that they would go back to their relationship once he returned; it would have just caused unnecessary pain for him to return mid-way through his degree and for the pair to be tiptoeing on the very thin line of platonic and romantic feelings.

He had cried on the phone, tears lining each of his words as thickly as his hurt, explaining to his mother of what his and Taehyung’s relationship had dwindled down to. But she had understood, like Jimin knew she would, and had not pressed on him to visit. 

Without words, both boys accepted their share of the blame.

“He loves you, doesn’t he?” Jimin asked. He knew what it was to love Kim Taehyung, he had seen parts of himself in Yoongi. 

Taehyung nodded. “I want him to stay.”

“I want him to stay too, I want to get to know my Taehyungie’s saviour of the past 3 years,” Jimin smiled, his eyes the crescent shape that Taehyung loved so much.

Taehyung let himself slip into bed with Jimin that morning. For the first time, his mind was allowing him to see things as they were, without the red screen of panic and danger; he would never harm Jimin. 

He had had the chance to kill Jimin on the balcony and yet, as true to his morals, he had saved Jimin. 

He was not going to recover overnight, but the future seemed filled with light for the first time in three years.

“We’re going to be okay?” Taehyung asked as he drifted off to sleep. 

“We’re going to be okay,” Jimin confirmed. 

And, as was only right, they would be until the end of their days.