The Last Of Us | tk ✓

nine | not now, not ever

Jeongguk and Taehyung accepted the fact that odds were nowhere near in favour of them, levelling with the wall all mushed together to peep the situation they were currently tangled in. Jeongguk counted ten — no, eleven armed soldiers rumbling around, scouting the place, for Taehyung and him.

Suggested, she was gone.

A lump formed in his throat as Jeongguk inhaled a sharp, shaky breath, supporting his back on the firm wall as Taehyung's shoulders and hip pressed on the older's left side, his eyes holding grief for the other.

An overwhelming emotion turmoil threatened to intrude his heaving chest, commanding him to fall on his knees in surrender. Life is meaningless, anyway. Would it have been him, all would have seemed so much as easier.

It wouldn't matter, Jeonnguk censured to himself, so get your shit together, Jeon. Rolling his shoulders, he examined the void around him.

It appeared to him as a grand-size diner room, with dusty chandeliers and muddy footsteps stamped on the maroon carpeting, a lengthy table with high chairs seeming out of the picture. There were two exits, spanning out, by one's frame stood the two, side by side and frozen.

Heavy footsteps were advancing on them. "Stick by me," Jeongguk hissed to Taehyung, then leapt to the cloth-covered table, now concealing the two young men as another equipped one sauntered in through the second entryway, glimpsing about with a constant snarl scoring his rough face, stepping closer and closer to the table where crouched behind was Jeongguk, Taehyung just an inch behind him at the almost edge.

The soldier pauses at the foot of the table, Jeongguk taking this risk to pounce on his feet and crack the poor son of bitch's neck with a strangled grunt, hiding down again in a flash.

He hauled the body out of the doorway's view, seizing the heavy gun from the floor and petting the dead bloke's pockets for ammo, discovering none. He snaps out the M16 rifle's magazine, sighing with relief that it was loaded fully.

He moves to get up, only for Taehyung to grab his arm and pull him back, their heads two centimetres away, who whispers softly, an urgency toned in his jerky vowels, "What about my weapon?" His thick, plush lips formed an offended oval. With a glare so dense Taehyung dropped his hand from his grasp, Jeongguk, still lowered, sneaked to the door, rifle tucked on his shoulder, ready for some action.

"Listen," Jeongguk seethes to Taehyung, who closes in, "I'm gonna clear the exit. There are more of these fuckers in the vehicles. No time, not much ammo. What do we do?" The sudden question draws Taehyung back, who stammers.

Jeongguk clenched and released his jaw. "We run. Like crazy. You get it, kid? Like crazy." Taehyung was nodding so strongly his fringe flopped up and down on his forehead, stopping dead when a figure approached them in the room, a growl following.

The loud banging of gunfires took Taehyung's breath away, who plunges back at an intense battleground that has begun. Jeongguk taking down men after men that emerged out of the blue from either access, so ruthlessly without letting one bullet whiz past him.

It was, in Taehyung's opinion, fucking sexy. While he, himself, ducked behind an oak stand in the bend of the room. His ears were ringing, only when Jeonnguk glanced back at him with ferocity did he discern it was time to flee.

They ran like crazy.

Out of the room, out of the hallway, out of the massive front door and into the grassy landscape, giving away Areum's dead body with a colossal hole in Jeonnguk's abstrusest essence.

A car engine starting up and a soldier's hoarse roar accelerated the adrenaline further, their hearts beating ever so powerfully, shoes thumping in the mud as the manor house grew smaller in size, the curve of a road leading along the mountains of Minryang-si, wounding its way on the edge of the city buildings and outward, to Daegu.

They only halted when the wilderness towered overhead, ivy-covered, broken architect and concrete pavement, lungs aching for air, throat stinging painstakingly.

Jeonnguk browsed nearby for any oncoming target, and at encountering none, his arms sagged, the rifle long discarded, slopping down beneath a shedding tree, leaves crunching sorrily under his timberlands.

He covered his face with his veiny hands, resting his elbows on his knees.

A moment later, whilst clutching his stitch, Taehyung realized the guy was crying silently. The mud soft under his soles, he shifted his weigh on each foot awkwardly, head bowed low. What could he say, Taehyung barely knew Jeongguk. Plus, it was far from 'okay,' so he can't tell that to Jeongguk. He was shattered.

Jeongguk sniffles a long sniff, bracing, lifting himself upon his feet. Now that there was no enemy to fight, Jeongguk felt her absence. Like colours pouring out of beautiful scenery, still, the sun remains the only element that exposes the skin of the canvas.

The emptiness of her existence jabbed needles inside Jeongguk's heart. Her memories flashed behind his eyelids, a single tear travelling down his cheek as he gazed at the sky, so vast and empty, an on-going facade of nature, so much unlike Areum.

"Hey," Taehyung's voice intrudes Jeongguk's reverie, who directs meekly, "About Areum..." Jeongguk snapped his bloodshot eyes at him, making him falter.

"No," Jeongguk grated, advancing unto Taehyung's limp posture, his mien audacious and deranged, "You don't ever, ever bring her up. D'ya hear me?" Taehyung doesn't answer and Jeongguk needed nothing. He rasps, waves weakening his speech, "Not now, not ever." He turns away, Taehyung's glossy irises following him to another apartment close by, presumably in anticipation to find a rest stop and simply lie down.

Taehyung only commences his stroll once Jeongguk is farther beyond, understanding and burdening himself with one prospect, the answer to the query as to why Jeongguk behaved the way he was. Guilt seeping in from the cracks of his heart and spreading into every vessel of his body, Taehyung chanted to himself, over and over again;

He blames me. He blames me for her death.

⁃

tell me
if u teared up?
i was feeling
sad originally
skjdjksjkd

i pray,

that all of ur
life's trails,
family problem/s
and dilemmas,
come to an end.
wtf ok ily. ♡