Ego: Hit and Run (Taekook)

Jeongguk, Jeongguk, Jeongguk...

Kim Taehyung had been looking out for no one but Kim Taehyung for a long time.

Long enough to have gathered a long list of haters. Or his admirers, as he liked to call the various men and women who wanted nothing more than to make him die a slow and painful death.

So he knew what it felt like to be hated. He had been on the short end of that stick for the past eight years.

But over the next month, Taehyung was becoming painfully aware that his past run-ins with hatred had amounted to jack shit, because Jeon Jeongguk hated him now. And being hated by Jeongguk was like nothing he had ever experienced before.

The younger could hold up a grudge with the limitless patience rivaling that of fasting monks, and then some. He had known Jeongguk to be petty before, sure, seeing as he heard him whine to Yoongi for not buying the right type of video game, or to Hoseok for not buying the right type of banana milk, or to Jimin for not buying the right type of manga or whatnot many times before. But he had never been on the other end of that short-lived resentment. Until now, that is, when he was constantly being caught on the other end of it.

The first week had started with a stifling stand off. The tension was almost tangible anytime they were within sight of each other. It engulfed the space between them like a thick smoke, suffocating the room in a deathly silence. Taehyung always felt deprived of oxygen afterwards, asphyxiating under the direct attack of those unrelenting eyes. But Jeongguk never seemed to be affected, always holding his head high with the nonchalance of indifference, the confidence of being in the right. He was calling the shots, writing the tickets, and handing out the fines all at once. And Taehyung just had to pick up the shredded pieces of his conscience every time he walked on by. So he knew things had to change, and they shouldn't see each other for a time being.

He knew it, but that awareness didn't make it better.

Because the second week was worse. Because the second week was nothing. Absolutely nothing. No encounters, no words, not even mere sounds from the next room (which Taehyung figured out later to be because Jeongguk had moved in to an entirely different room, to be away from him). Not only was the silence all-encompassing, it was absolutely deafening. Because when there was nothing else to focus on, Taehyung felt like he was drowning in himself. Wrecked by the self-inflicted tide of flesh eating guilt that was consuming him from the inside. The added salt on his wound was none other than his own self-directed shame every time he did so much as thought of the boy. So not only was Taehyung being treated like shit, he was also treating himself as shit.

The third week felt better. Taehyung could see him again, seeing as he made the conscious effort to seek the boy out. His rationale was that he needed to do it, before he went crazy on nothingness and self-torment. So he compromised with himself. He could observe him, from a distance, always removed from the other's line of sight, peeping in to his interactions with others around the house. But seeing him came with its own conditions. So he made some rules. Watching him was as far as he went, never allowing himself to overstep the boundaries he had charted so meticulously in his brain and breach the fourth wall. Never any words, any looks, any lies. Just like the boy had wanted. And that was about all third week brought. And still, it was enough for him.

The fourth week rolled the month into an inconclusive end, everything remaining carefully undefined, unscripted, and marred by ambiguity. Because that was the way it was, and the way it had to be, if this impasse were to continue, if the fine balance was to be maintained. He had to keep rolling with the punches, keep isolating, keep routinely unattached. Easier said than done. Since Taehyung was only a man, and a man is only flawed. So, naturally, he slipped up some times.

Like now.

It was the seventh day of the fourth week since this situation had commenced. Hence, Taehyung was a little unhinged. Sue him.