The Last Of Us | tk ✓

ten | it's okay to say goodbye

Jeongguk was sitting all alone, head bowed, on the edge of someone's bed, littered around were broken shards of glass or wooden furniture. Areum being gone, there still remains an empty space in his mind that accepted her absence, grieving it, crying it away just for it to come back fresh and new.

A warm hand wrapped around his own, and at looking up he recognised Taehyung staring down at him with the smallest of smiles settling on his plush lips. His fingers tug at Jeongguk's, urging him to get on his feet. Taehyung leads Jeongguk outside, the sky ripped with clouds and a dull pink glow to them as the sun decided to set.

The mud soft beneath their boots, the grass short and wild around them, they approach what seemed to Jeonnguk, a tombstone; a grey bulk of huge misshaped rock, painted across with drying clay were the words, "LEE AREUM. A GOOD FRIEND. A SURVIVOR." His figure limp and cautious, Jeongguk edged closer, then glanced back at Taehyung, whispering in an undertone, "Thank you."

Taehyung nods, stepping back and suggesting, "I'll give you, er, a moment." With that, he retreats inside the apartment they were currently taking shelter in, the streets silent and solitary.

At first, Jeongguk doesn't know what to say, however, he begins steadily, his eyes locked on the ground few feet in front of him, knowing he has to pretend Areum sleeps under it, so he does; "What you did back there, Ari, I'll a-always remember that. Thank you, for understanding me, for having my back. Every time. You-you've got beautiful eyes, did I ever tell you that?" He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, sniffling and gulping. "Thank you. I love you. Goodbye, now. Rest well, you deserve it."

He gently twists around, bending down to pick a wildflower and lay it on the damp earth.   

‗

Taehyung is lying on the sofa, eyes fogged as he delves into the cosmic nothingness of his mind. When Jeongguk enters in the ill-lit living room, Taehyung gradually rose, following his gaze at the former's eerie form. "Hey," he calls out to the older, patting the seat next to him, "Come join me."

Jeongguk arches a clever brow at Taehyung, nevertheless proceeding to plop down beside Taehyung, whose irises gleam with vibrant mellowness, trapping his bottom lip between his teeth. This intimacy Taehyung showed welcomed Jeongguk to establish something concrete between them, loose threads of mistrust cut off, just like that.

"So," Taehyung posed, a faint grin on his features, "Why'd she call you 'Busan?'"

Jeongguk chortled at the question, gazing up at the ceiling and going through the memory with twinkling eyes. He revealed, chuckling the last humour off, "Some days after we met, I'd still not given her my name. We used to have the same shift together back at the zone. One day, she comes up to me and asks (or I thought she did) 'Hey, where are you from?' and I reply with Busan, born and bred. I look at her confused because she's looking at me confused. I was too busy ogling her at that time that after only some time later did I realize: the real thing she asked me for was my name, not my hometown. Thus, the nickname." Taehyung 'aw's at Jeongguk's reddened face, averting his gaze with a pang of something bitter, shoving the mood aside instantly.

"She'll be okay," uttered Taehyung tenderly, "It's okay to say goodbye." The air around them snuggled Jeongguk in a comforting embrace, the quiet atmosphere reconciling the two in.

Jeongguk phrased, belittle and timid, "I don't... I don't blame you, kid. For her." Their eyes meet, upholding each other's gaze, irises bright. "I should've been there for her." On cue, Taehyung envelops Jeongguk in a bear hug wordlessly, so strong for someone so delicate, catching the other off-guard, who returns the familiarity with an equal squeeze a second later. 

When they break apart, Jeongguk gets up to stand, a tiny smile resurfacing on his plump mouth. He asserts, gesturing to the front door of the apartment room, "I'll take first watch, okay?" Taehyung bobs his head in affirmation, whilst the older hoists his pistol and plops on the small chair directly opposite the door.

The night crawls into the roofed sky, crickets punctuating their croaks with every second. The dull breeze rustles the wild grass, which susurrates pleasingly. Jeongguk could almost pretend there was nothing to fear out there, no one to kill, but the rough metal clasped around his long fingers spoke otherwise.

He cranes his neck to glimpse at Taehyung's snoring form, smiling to himself. Areum liked Taehyung, he knew that much. They were similar in some ways, more boldly the part where they so effortlessly understood another's feelings, so well.

How did they do it? Jeongguk marvels to himself, eyes now locked on straight ahead.

Somewhere better, radiant, Jeongguk desired for Areum to be. As time trickled by, he'd still be thinking about her, but more as a memoir, than from despair.

Because it's okay to say goodbye.

‒

i wuv u. ♡ bei

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