LULLABY - TAEGYU ✔️

thirty-one: GONE

It's warm, yet it feels so cold.

Beomgyu's eyes slowly open, his entire body wrapped in a blanket, his body curled because of the cold air coming from the AC.

He blinks his eyes, clearing his vision and when his consciousness finally wakes up, Beomgyu immediately feels an unexplainable sunken feeling in him, his stomach twisting with worry.

"Butterfly?" Beomgyu groans out as he turns his body around to reach his hand for Taehyun-
Only to be met with an empty space.

Beomgyu furrows his eyebrows as he eyes the cold and empty space beside him. The pillows were stacked neatly and the dorm is eerily quiet.

No sound of the shower running and no sound of the clankings of pans and kitchen utensils coming from outside the room.
A sense of panic starts surging through Beomgyu.

"Taehyun??" Beomgyu calls out, immediately jumping of from bed to search the bedroom.
When he finds Taehyun not in the bathroom, he searches his bedroom, the living room and the kitchen only to find it empty.

"Taehyun??" Beomgyu calls out again.
If Taehyun had left, he's pretty sure the younger would've woken him up.

Beomgyu feels his heart starting to race as he goes back to Taehyun's room to check the bathroom and wardrobe, only to realize that Taehyun's things are all gone.
His luggage underneath the bed was gone too.

Beomgyu started to panic, his hands trembled as he still searches for Taehyun, flipping everything in the room, to find anything, any trail that the younger left behind.
He starts to feel anxious, bringing his fingers up to bite his nails.

'Where did he go?'
Beomgyu didn't want to think the worse. So he grabs his phone and dials for Soobin's number.
"Hello?" Soobin answers the phone from the other line.
"H-Hyung..." Beomgyu calls out, voice shaky, hands trembling, words stuttering, immediately catching Soobin's attention.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Soobin asks, shocked at Beomgyu's voice.
It's the first time he's ever heard him like this.
"Is Taehyun with you? Did he stay over? D-Did he bring his stuff I-"

"Beomgyu, calm down. What do you mean? Taehyun didn't come over."
"W-What?? What do you mean??"

Beomgyu's eyes widen and he pulls his phone away from his ear. He didn't want to think of the worst. It didn't add up, nothing makes sense.

Taehyun would never leave him.
"Beomgyu? Did something happen?" Soobin asks.
"Taehyun's... gone." Beomgyu says.

"What do you mean??"
"I-I don't know what happened."
"Did you two fight??"

"N-No, we didn't. We were suppose to go on a date today. Everything was fine last night I-"
"Beomgyu calm down-"
"No, I gotta find him."

Beomgyu abruptly ends the call and slips ok his jacket before running out from the dorm with only his phone in his hand.
As he runs down the hallways of the accommodation building, he asks anyone if they've seen Taehyun, but to no avail.

He continues to call Taehyun on his way to campus but it goes straight to voice mail everytime.
Taehyun didn't have class today nor did he but he still went to search at the university, at the cafeteria, in the lecture halls. He even asked the younger's classmates but none of them had seen him.

Beomgyu clicks his tongue, running his fingers through his hair in frustration.
"Where are you?" Beomgyu mutters.

Beomgyu then rush towards the administration office to see if Taehyun was there to possibly meet the lecturers or even the clerks there but when he walks up to the counter, that's when he felt his heart stop, lips quiver and face pale drowning out of blood.

He reaches out for the paper on the counter as he caresses through the name on it.
'Kang Taehyun'
'Resignation From HYBE University'

"Taehyun..."
He left?
'But why?'

Beomgyu crumpled the piece of paper before tossing it into the trash can and sprinting out from the administration office and out from the university.

He halts a cab and immediately gets in.
"Can you please go to this address?" Beomgyu asks while he shows the address of Taehyun's family restaurant.

He feels his heart pounding, twisting and in pain. He keeps on praying silently that the driver would drive as fast beyond speed limit. He was close to pushing the driver away to take over the wheel.

Once they reached near to the restaurant, Beomgyu gets off the cab, after banking in money to the driver since he didn't bring any cash.

He dashes out and runs to the restaurant but then he slows down, his face sullen when he sees the restaurant.

CLOSED.

'Huh??'

Beomgyu spots a few people at the entrance of the restaurant and decides to ask them about it.
"Excuse me, do you happen to know what happened to this restaurant?" Beomgyu asks.

"Some said they've closed the restaurant for personal reasons but we're not sure where they're moving too. It's such a pity, everyone loved eating here." A random man said.

"T-Thank you." Beomgyu says before running off to the last place he hopes to find Taehyun at.
His family home.

But when he reaches the small home that belonged to his boyfriend's family, his heart clenches and the tears he's been holding back finally falls down his cheeks and to the tip of his chin as he's met with an empty home with a big sign on it.

FOR SALE.

Beomgyu falls onto his knee, hugging himself as he lets out choked sobs, his vision immediately turning blurry from the tears clogging his vision.
"Where did you go?" Beomgyu mumbles, voice shaky.

His heart hurt. Taehyun was gone. He slipped away from his arms, without telling him, without giving him a sign. He left no trace for Beomgyu to find him, as if he did it on purpose.
'Did you ever love me?'

Beomgyu balls his knuckles into fist, coughing out and heavily breathing ad he feels the air ripped out of his lungs.

He feels himself burning, his emotions scattered around his mind. He feels sadness and anger, a tiny bit of guilt, but most importantly, he felt heartbreak.
His very first.

Beomgyu looks up at the house with anger plastered on his face. If this was the answer Taehyun had been wanting to give him, he's mad at himself for falling into Taehyun's trap.
He should've known and should've trusted himself. That love is bullshit and life is nothing but an illusion.
Taehyun left him.

He left him after all those months.
He left him after yesterday.

Oh, how much he was a fool to fall for someone he hoped to give his everything and expect a return of the same thing.

He was a fool-

To be heart broken by the boy he loves so much.