Beyond Saturation

A

2 May 2003

"He loves anything butter-scotch flavoured, Tae. And he loves spicy chicken feet. He basically loves anything that's spicy," Jihyo, Jeongguk's mother said. 

"Okay, Eomeonim, thank you," Taehyung said with a smile even though Jihyo was on the other end of the call and couldn't see his face. 

"Any time, child," Jihyo said and Taehyung could hear her smile in her voice. He smiled wider and hung up on her. He loved his mother-in-law. She was one of the sweetest people he had ever met. 

Completely opposite to a certain someone that she had given birth to. 

Yoongi, his husband's older brother, was very sweet too. He supposed his husband got his rudeness and asshole-ness from his father. Jaewan, Jeongguk's father, was just as much an asshole to Jihyo as Jeongguk was to Taehyung. 

And thus, even though it had only been a year since Taehyung and Jeongguk got married to each other, Taehyung related to Jihyo on a very great scale. 

With a sigh, he put his phone aside and rolled his sleeves up. He was going to bake a nice cake and make his husband happy when he returned home tonight. He had taken a leave today, after all. He was going to make maximum use of it to impress his husband. 

All of his experience at the local bakery gave him enough knowledge as to how he could impress anyone with a cake. He was going to use that knowledge to the maximum now.

By the time his husband returned from work, he had the cake, spicy chicken feet, and a few other spicy foods that he could think of ready for him. 

"You're back," he greeted his husband with a grin, which wasn't returned. He didn't mind it. He wordlessly took his husband's coat and walked behind him, knowing his husband was going to walk straight to the dining table. 

His smile fell, however, when Jeongguk glanced at the cake and irritatedly said, "what is this? It's our first anniversary today?" 

Schooling his expression to a forced smile, Taehyung nodded and picked up the cake, holding it out for Jeongguk to look at. Jeongguk stared at it for a few seconds before looking up at Taehyung with a bored expression. "So?" he asked with a frown, "what do you want me to do about it?"

Taehyung's smile fell again and this time, he didn't bother to pick it up. "W-We were supposed to c-celebra-"

"Celebrate? Celebrate what? My marriage with your useless ass? I'm regretting it already, don't do shit like this and make me regret it more," Jeongguk said and grabbed the bowl of spicy chicken feet and walked upstairs to their bedroom, leaving Taehyung all alone in the dining room with the cake still in his hands. 

Taehyung gulped hard and placed the cake on the table. He nodded to himself. "Yeah, I should have known he wouldn't enjoy stuff like this. Foolish, Tae, very foolish," he hit his own head as a punishment of sorts and grabbed the knife. "Happy first anniversary, Tae," he whispered to himself and cut the cake. 

Tears poured down his face as he put a piece of the cake into his mouth. His hard work had paid off and the cake tasted wonderful and that just made him cry harder. 

With his knuckles turning white, he sat down at the table and buried his face in his hands. He didn't know what he had done for his husband to hate him so much, but it hurt. It hurt very badly. 

His phone rang a few minutes later, making him take a deep breath and wipe his tears. It was his brother. "Hi, hyung," he answered the call. 

"Hi, Tae. Many happy returns of the day," Seokjin wished, but before Taehyung could even say 'thank you', he heard Namjoon wish him many happy returns of the day as well. 

Tears pooled up in his eyes again. Nothing about the day was 'happy'. There was nothing 'happy' in his married life to return to. Still, he thanked them and continued conversing with them as if nothing upsetting happened. 

"So what did Jeongguk-ssi do for you?" Seokjin asked. Taehyung could hear the excitement in his voice. He knew his brother was still a little upset at Jeongguk for not letting Taehyung attend his wedding, and thus, he didn't want to disappoint him further. 

"H-He bought me a platinum necklace, hyung, it's b-beautiful," he couldn't stop his voice from shaking at the lie. He wouldn't mind it even if the necklace was made of iron. He just wanted his husband to be nice to him. Was that too much to ask for?

"PLATINUM NECKLACE?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! WOOOWWW!! JOONIE, YOU HEARD THAT?! You now know what I'm expecting for our first anniversary, right?" 

"Of course, baby," Taehyung heard Namjoon say and chuckled slightly. Trust his brother to make him smile without even knowing he was upset in the first place. 

"Okay, we are going out for dinner. I'll call you later," Taehyung said. He didn't want to keep talking when there was a huge lump present in his throat. His brother was bound to notice at some point. 

"Okay, Tae, have fun!! Bye," Seokjin said and hung up after Namjoon said the same. Taehyung brought his phone down and hung his head with a heavy sigh. 

"Get ready, what are you doing?" he heard his husband say from the stairs and his head whipped up. "Huh?" he asked. "Didn't you just tell your brother we are going out for dinner? Get ready-"

Taehyung's eyes lit up like lights in a dark room. "Really?!" he asked excitedly with a huge grin. 

"-I'll get to eat better food at least for one night."

And just like that, Taehyung's smile fell again. 

"Okay," he said in a small voice and left to get ready. Despite his bad mood, he still managed to dress up prettily. And Jeongguk made sure to add a platinum necklace to his neck after dinner that night. 

"Don't forget that I spent almost half of the money in my bank account on this necklace. Don't make such ridiculous statements to your useless family in the future. What would you have done if your fucker of a brother asked you to show the necklace?! Don't you ever think before speaking?! Or was this your plan from the start? To put me in a situation where I will HAVE to buy you one platinum necklace?! You're unbelievable, really!!" 

With that, Jeongguk turned away from Taehyung and fell asleep, leaving Taehyung alone with his tears and thoughts. 

'You should not have bought me the necklace, then. I don't even wanna wear it anymore,' Taehyung thought as the first tear fell, 'I would have told my brother some story if he had asked me to show him the necklace. I'm good at making up stories, after all.'

And then the tears didn't stop.