My Heart on Your Sleeve (TaeKook)

ONE

Smack.

Taehyung's cheek didn't turn from the slap nor did he flinch when the hysterical woman spouted a lengthy paragraph of expletives in his face. It was hard to feel the sting or hear the whispers around him in the brightly lit restaurant when he sat there ruminating about how little feeling was involved in the exchange. He was always so easily swept up at the beginning of romances, but by the end of each one, he felt sucked dry and exhausted, unwilling to even mourn over the expected.

To be honest, he hadn't felt much in a very long time. It almost seemed ritualistic at this point. A habit carved into stone and forever unchanging.

The emptiness inside would beg mercilessly for warmth and affection, hauntingly calling to him in the middle of the night. He'd resist as best as he could until it blew up in his face and submerge himself into the first person who treated him like he was special. And because Taehyung had always been reckless, he'd dive heart-first into each partnership with everything he had. He needed to satisfy that pleading voice and escape the twilight zone. Otherwise, it drove his mind crazy and then his mind would drive him crazy.

Taeyhyung would rather not go back to the days he shrunk into the shadows, engulfed by darkness, and became their plaything. Those times were excruciating. Like living in a nightmare within a nightmare.

That's why he had been hopeful this time. She had appeared loving and caring, and he had latched onto that with the hope that this time would be different. However, she only sunk her claws into his wallet and slept with any man who tossed her a second glance.

Safe to say, his taste in partners was absolutely horrific.

"You were just so fucking needy," she shrieked. Her voice, which once offered solace, resembled nails on a chalkboard. But this wasn't the first time or person he had heard that complaint from. "Of course I felt suffocated, but I stuck around because you were hot and whipped. Yet, you have the balls to dump me?"

Was this always going to be the result of loving unconditionally?

The chair scraped along the tiled floor as she stood and snatched her purse off of the table. Her existence had been obliterated from his vision, deleted from his life, the moment he sat down and uttered the words that earned him the initial slap.

'You're no longer important to me, so we're done.'

He had always been a blunt person, especially to those who had wronged him, which put a target on his head when spiteful partners were cut off from his riches.

"Eat dick and die, you good-for-nothing prick!"

The echo of stiletto heels reverberated behind her, and after a gust of wind filtered into the restaurant, Taehyung was left alone.

Again.

He sat there with the same nonchalance of a catatonic patient until the steam from his black coffee disappeared and lost all of its warmth.

Just like his heart.

'And your bed when you get home tonight,' his brain chimed in with a sadistic cackle.

He ignored it and finally stood to leave. The music in the restaurant had obscured it, but the pitter patter of semi-heavy rain was evident as soon as he opened the door that led to the outside world.

The wind howled and sent raindrops flying into Taehyung's face. Unlike all the other pedestrians who were running to hide from it, Taehyung's pace slowed as he stood directly under the angry gray clouds. His eyes closed as soon as he felt the cool droplets rain down on him, camouflaging the dread and emptiness welling up inside of him like an overfilled water balloon ready to explode.