Beyond Saturation

N

22 July 2016

Taehyung gulped as he looked at his ringing phone. This was new to him. He still needed time to get used to getting calls from his husband. 

He took a deep breath and answered the call. "H-Hello, seobang-nim."

"Are you coming back?" 

"Yes, we are in the train."

"Tell me when you are close to Seoul. I'll come and pick you up."

Taehyung's eyes widened, making Junha alert. He ignored Junha and his hand went to grab his stomach. What was this foreign feeling inside his stomach? He shouldn't have expected anything, but a small smile made its way up to his lips as he looked down shyly. 

"Okay," he whispered. Jeongguk hung up after that, leaving Taehyung smiling for the rest of the journey. 

Were his efforts finally paying off? Was his husband finally changing? Was he finally going to live a peaceful life? 

Was he finally going to be able to call his husband by his name like he had always wanted to do? 

Maybe it was too early to hope for that, but he couldn't help his thoughts from wandering wild. He had always dreamt of being romantic with his future partner. He had even come up with a few romantic nicknames of his own to use, but the second he met Jeongguk, he knew he would have to abandon all those dreams. 

Out of formality, because Jeongguk was older than him, he had called him 'seobang-nim' at the beginning, and Jeongguk had never asked him to stop. He had never asked him to stop calling him with so much respect. He had never asked him to drop the honorifics and Taehyung had never felt comfortable enough around him to experiment. 

Maybe that was why he couldn't find it in himself to even refer to him as 'Jeongguk-ssi' in his mind. As if that was disrespectful as well. When Junha became a part of their family, Taehyung came to know that calling a spouse by their child's name along with their relationship with the child was a traditional and very respectful way of calling them. 

He experimented with it once when Jeongguk was mad, and surprisingly, it cooled him down almost immediately, and since then, he hadn't stopped calling him 'Junha Appa'. 'Seobang-nim' was still in use as well, but he had always wanted to call him by his name too. 

Like all the other couples that he always saw. 

Hell, he called Yoongi 'hyung' and Yoongi was two years older than Seokjin and Jeongguk, so why had his husband not given him that permission yet? Seeing couples call each other nicknames always made him jealous, but there was nothing he could do about it. 

"Appa didn't talk to me again," Junha pouted, bringing Taehyung out of his thoughts. 

He grimaced, feeling bad for his son. He knew Junha had been waiting for Taehyung to pass him the phone the previous day. He knew Junha had expected Jeongguk to want to talk to him as well. He knew how heartbroken Junha had been when Taehyung walked down the stairs with his phone inside his pocket instead of his hand. 

He knew despite calling him bad, Junha still strived for Jeongguk's acceptance and affection. Something that he almost never received from the said man. 

"He was busy, baby. You'll get to talk to him when we reach Seoul. He is coming to pick us up," he said. "Really?" Junha's eyes lit up, but the kid masked his excitement almost immediately and looked away from Taehyung. "Whatever. I don't like him," he said. 

Taehyung pressed his lips together to stop himself from smiling. "Sure," he said and looked away as well, finally letting himself smile wide. His husband was coming to pick him up. He was sure there was no one about as happy as he was at the moment. 

When they neared Seoul, he called Jeongguk, this time with a smile (a huge achievement, according to him). 

"Had fun?" Jeongguk asked, looking straight at Junha when they got off the train. Junha nodded with a smile. "Good," Jeongguk said and put his hand on Junha's head, ruffling his hair gently. 

Taehyung patiently waited for his husband to finish interacting with his son and talk to him as well, but it never came. Jeongguk didn't even look at him. 

Taehyung's smile fell a little, but he took a deep breath and schooled his expression back to a neutral one. It was nothing new to him, after all. Maybe Jeongguk would talk to him after they reached home and Junha went to his room. 

On their way back, Jeongguk took a detour towards Yoongi's house. 

"Seobang-nim?" Taehyung called out timidly. 

"Hmm?" 

"Why are we going to Hobi hyung's house?" he asked. 

"To drop Junha there. He'll be spending the weekend with them. Yoongi and Hoseok have a few outings planned for the kids," Jeongguk answered civilly. 

"Okay," Taehyung said and looked away, outside the window. Jeongguk just talked to him without calling him useless even once. Without a single insult. Not even an indirect one. Wasn't that enough for him?

He dared to look at his husband once again and looked away right away, but this time with a frown. His husband's face looked stiff, his jaw was clenched tightly, and his knuckles were white around the steering wheel. As if he was holding a lot of anger reigned in. 

It should have raised alarms in Taehyung's brain, because he was all used to this expression on Jeongguk's face, but poor Taehyung was too lost in the fact that Jeongguk had talked nicely to him to notice his dangerous expression. 

The fact that Jeongguk was willingly leaving Junha at someone's place alone should have raised alarms as well, but again, poor Taehyung was just too lost to think properly. 

When they reached their home after dropping Junha off, he walked behind Jeongguk with his head hanging low. Maybe that was a mistake too. If he had been looking up, he would have noticed how Jeongguk was flexing his muscles ahead of him. 

He was too late at noticing the hand that raised up. Hell, he hadn't even noticed his husband turn around. 

Anyways, he was too late to brace himself against the tight slap that sent his entire body crashing to the ground. 

He was too late to notice the mad rage in his husband's eyes.