White Lies
chapter i. secrets
Growing up with your best friend, Kim Taehyung, has allowed you to notice things about him that no other person may have seen.
Throughout the years that had passed, you had witnessed him evolve from a quirky young boy to a mature young man. You had noticed the changes in him, how he had refined himself from the kid who was slightly shorter than you were in the early years of grade school to the tall man who towered over you as you walked beside him in the last year of high school.
The years had been filled with too many memories and wondrous moments that you shared together, and they had become a part of your life that you treasured the most—from all the mornings where you would walk side by side down the road from home to the bus stop and all the long chats which you would share as you waited for the school bus ride to come. It had always been easy to think back to those moments, of the comfort you felt when you were with him, and how often you would silently marvel at him while he kept his eyes looking up to the sky, admiring the beautiful colours painting the sky above, the clouds, and even the bright sun that fell perfectly on his beautiful face.
It was during one of those moments when you caught the change in him that you had never expected to see, when he began to look away from the beautiful sky above that he had adored so much to admire a certain beauty that came to your lives unexpectedly. What had stolen his attention was the new girl in town, moving in right before the end of senior year in high school. She had somehow shared the same bus route to school, which led her to join you and Taehyung at the bus stop every morning, and she had a certain shine in her which caught Taehyung's eyes since the moment his gaze had fallen on her at the beginning of fall.
You had known that nothing would ever be the same again since. But it wasn't until the day he finally mustered the courage to walk over to her and introduce himself to her after a whole week of silently admiring her from afar when you felt like your world was turning sideways.
You still watched him silently every morning, noticing how they had grown even closer ever since, until you noticed that something deeper than friendship started to bloom between them. You could only stay silent as you watched the look in his eyes changed into something entirely foreign to you whenever he looked at her, and there was really nothing you could do when he began fading away from your life, his presence dissipating bits by bits as he began drifting away, slowly becoming a part of hers and leaving you behind in the shadows.
"Can I see you today? There is something that I need to tell you," you spoke slowly through the phone.
With every word you said to him, you felt your heartbeat slowly rising, increasing with every bit of hope you had to have him agree to meet you today. The day had already begun with pure disappointment when you arrived at this diner only to find that he had not been here to meet you as promised, but you did all you could to brush it away.
The fact that he had been constantly missing out on your regular hangout schedules either with you alone or the days spent with your friends had certainly not been missed, so it should have no longer surprised you to see that he was not there when you came in for lunch. On any other day, you would only brush it off, already knowing where he would be when he was not there.
But today was different. Today, it was important for you to have him there. Today would be the time when you needed him the most.
So you held up hope as you called for him. Yet the deep sigh that came from the other side as your answer quickly crushed your hopes into dust even before he even said a thing to further break you apart.
"I'm sorry, I can't today. Mina's mother is visiting, they asked me to drive them around town," he answered you through the phone with a low voice, regretting every word he said. "What about tomorrow?'
Something pinched at your chest and you had to suck a deep breath to hold it in. A mix of your pain and your exasperation boiled together inside you when you realised that he never even mentioned the fact that he was supposed to be meeting you today.
He had totally forgotten about it.
"That's fine. I'll call you."
Without even waiting for his answer, you quickly turned off the call and placed your phone on the table before you, its screen facing down just so you would not be tempted to reach out to it again. Your eyes fell on the brown envelope that you had placed next to your untouched coffee, and a bitter smile came to your face as you thought about its content.
"_______."
As your name was called, you raised your head to see two of your closest friends coming to your table. Their heights and strong build, mixed with their incredibly attractive looks, made a few heads turn. Though at the same time, their presence was quite intimidating that not a lot of people around you dared to look for too long.
"Hey, Namjoon. Hey, Jin," you greeted them with a forced smile and nodded at the empty seats across from you so they could join you in your booth.
"What are you doing here all alone?" Namjoon questioned you as he sat down, while Seokjin reached for the menu. "I thought you said you were meeting Taehyung here? That's why we came."
"Yeah, well—" you stopped and sighed, thinking back to the short conversation that you just had with him. "He apparently decided to cancel without even letting me know."
A sarcastic scoff left your lips the moment you said those words out loud and the tight pinch you felt in your chest turned into anger. You simply could not believe that he simply forgot, and as much as you wanted so badly to not blame him for it, it was hard for you to deny your own feelings, the disdain you felt for being neglected by your own best friend.
Having your thoughts wandering about, you almost forgot that you were no longer alone. You felt their eyes on you and slowly raised your coffee, sipping it slowly to mask whatever reaction written on your face. It had seemed futile, however, when you caught Seokjin's gaze the moment you placed the cup and saw him looking at you with an apologetic smile and a concerned look in his eyes.
You averted your eyes, and his gaze fell on the envelope sitting right next to your coffee and your forgotten phone. "What is that?"
His question had you looking at him, and this time, even Namjoon had noticed its presence and he was now looking at it curiously that you had no chance but to slide the envelope across the table. Seokjin was the one to pick it up, opening it carefully to study its contents, and his eyes grew wide as he read the letter that he pulled right out of it.
"An acceptance letter?" he asked you, raising his eyebrows when you responded with a nod, while Namjoon looked between you and the letter before questioning,
"Accepted for what? Did you apply for a college transfer?"
You gave them another nod.
"Where to?"
Namjoon was the one leading the conversation this time, while Seokjin stayed silent as he was watching you closely.
All of a sudden, your throat felt dry, but you managed to answer them anyway. "London."
There was a brief moment of silence that fell right after, with both of them simply staring at you as they tried to process the shocking news while you were trying to let it sink in that this was truly happening.
"So—you're leaving?" Seokjin finally broke the silence between you, though his calm voice did nothing to erase the tension still rolling through your body and the only thing you could do to answer him without breaking apart was to give him a nod. "When?"
Sucking a deep breath, you braced the reality that you were in and gave him a real answer. "Soon. I'll be starting the new term which starts in 3 months. I'll be finishing my classes before the final week of this term just so I could get there much sooner to settle in at the dorms and take care of all the administrations and all that stuff," you finally laid out everything to them, and Seokjin's gaze turned hard.
"You've had it all figured out," he deadpanned, which surprised you for a moment before you realised that he simply didn't like that he knew nothing about this.
You opened your mouth to explain before things could get awkward and tense, but Namjoon beat you up to it by saying, "That sounds great, _______." You turned your attention on him as he questioned you further, "That's actually a pretty big move, though. Is there anyone going with you out there?"
Chuckling bitterly, you answered him while forcing yourself to share his excitement with a smile, "Thank you, Namjoon. Yeah, it is a big move. And no, I'll be heading there myself. I think I can handle everything as long as the campus helps me prepare all the paperwork from here."
When you noticed that Seokjin had yet to say a thing, you turned to him again only to see him frowning. But he didn't leave you questioning his reaction for too long when he asked, "Taehyung knows about this, right?"
Biting your lips, you contemplated on telling him the truth before shaking your head. "I was going to tell him about it today. I—" you stopped yourself right before you could say too much. "It was a long process, and we have both been busy so I never got the chance to."
That was not a lie. Though not exactly the truth. Taehyung had been constantly away, too busy spending time with his girlfriend to see you, and you had done all you could to avoid talking to him about this move until the very last minute when you finally decided that there was no turning back from it.
Shrugging, you forced a smile and continued, "He'll find out about it soon probably anyway, though I'm not sure if I can tell him before I'd have to leave. I'll be focusing on the preparation now that it's final and I need to make sure I won't be leaving any unfinished business on campus behind so my days will be packed."
You realised that you were rambling but you couldn't stop yourself. Today was the only chance you had to tell him everything, perhaps to say goodbye properly as well. And you had long decided that whether or not he was going to show up today, you were leaving anyway. And it was not your fault that he was not here to find out that your days with him were ending. The fact that he wasn't here had only proven that you were the only one who had been waiting for this moment, to have this closure, and that you had not even crossed his mind.
The sigh that came out of Seokjin's lips as he handed you the letters back was telling enough that he somehow knew what you were thinking before he said anything. "______," he said as he leaned closer. "He needs to know. You've been friends since you were babies, did you really think it'll be okay to just leave without saying anything to him? Can you really feel good about yourself by not talking to him about this at all?"
When you opened your mouth to respond, the first reaction that you were prepared to give him had been denial, another set of white lies to let him think that there had been any problem between you and Taehyung. But there was something in Seokjin's gaze that was telling you that your friend knew everything. And knowing him, he would easily be able to call you out of your excuses.
The thought of it made you feel transparent, exposed, that your exasperation came forward and your answer came out flowing the moment you opened the dam of emotions in its wake. "I have tried, Jin. Believe me, I tried. I've tried so many times to talk to him, even before I even made up my mind to apply to move to that university, but he never had time for me," you told him then. Every bit of anger and disappointment that you had ever felt from the way Taehyung had been treating you simply rushed forward, before the actual reason behind the betrayal that you had felt finally came to the surface.
"He puts Mina first. Always her above all else, including me. Even when he finally does have time to spend with me, he would be busy on his phone or having his thoughts wandering away from me," you finally confided with a deep sigh. "Don't you see it? I no longer matter. He has changed, and he has somehow decided that whatever changes he is taking, I'm never going to be a part of it. So why does it matter anyway whether or not I tell him about leaving? He had already forgotten about me when I am, literally, still here. If he can do so much as to move on with his life without letting me be a part of it, why does it matter if I'm gone? Perhaps it would be better for everyone anyway."
Because then you would no longer be a shadow, trapped at the same spot over a silly promise that he no longer cared to remember while he carried on with his life like those words never truly meant a thing for him when it had meant the world to you.
"Is that the reason why you are leaving?" Seokjin questioned you, sounding more concerned this time when he finally understood what was going on.
With a deep breath, you calmed yourself down, willing your anger to fade once the weight you had felt from your secrets was now out there for your friends to see. Giving him a bitter smile, you finally confessed, "Yes, that is a part of my reason. But what is most important of all is that I have decided it is time for me to go. There is no need for me to stay where I'm not needed. I can't put my life on hold for him anymore."
It sure felt like irony when the weather grew solemn the moment you arrived at the airport.
The sky above you was painted in beautiful shades of grey, dark clouds hanging where your eyes could see and the cold breeze blowing passed with a hint of rain coming. As if the universe felt somber over your departure. Tightening your coat, you brushed away the chill that suddenly came running through your spine, like a foreshadowing of the big change that you were about to face, and forced your legs to move.
Keeping your eyes on the airport's departure gate, you made your way to the security gate with determined steps. With your handbag swinging on your shoulder, your suitcase gliding on the floor as you pulled it with you, only a few steps away from passing the security check when a deep voice called for you to make you stop.
"________!"
Hearing his voice, your heart instantly dropped. You tried to deny it, but it was impossible for you not to recognise that deep voice when you had grown to know him for years. With a tightness in your chest, you forced a deep breath and turned to face him, catching him running as fast as he could to reach for you. His hair was dishevelled from being blown in the wind, and you had to resist the urge to reach up and smooth it up for him the way you used to years ago. The disbelief in his eyes must have been mirrored yours, yet you tried your best not to react to him even as you silently wondered,
Why is he here?
"Taehyung," you mused softly at the sight of him actually being there as he finally reached you. "How did you—"
"I—I'm sorry. Jin told me that you were leaving today, and I was—" he tried to speak between his ragged breaths, and you said nothing as you waited for him to continue to speak. "I just—" He stopped once again only to shake his head. "Look, I know that I haven't been around for you and I'm so deeply sorry for that. But damn it, _______. Why couldn't you—? Why didn't you say anything to me about this? Why didn't you tell me that you're leaving when you could've told me on the phone, many times, and—"
You raised your hands to stop him and began shaking your head. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have kept this from you, but it's not like you've given me any chance to speak about it in the first place," you told him, keeping your emotions calmed. "At first, I simply thought that this was perhaps a bit too big for me to talk about on the phone, and you were too important to me personally that saying goodbye through a phone call just won't do. But then time passed on, and all of a sudden, I just had no chance to let you know at all."
Almost instantly, you bit your lips once you were done talking. Despite the fact that there was some truth in your words, not all of them were true. You had meant it when you said how important he was for you and how you felt it would be unfair to simply talk to it through the phone. But it wasn't like you had been trying harder to see him to talk about everything either.
If Taehyung could see through your lies, he said nothing about it. Though he was staring at you with his jaw falling, completely lost for words after listening to what you had just said. "What—so you just wanted to leave without any goodbyes and keep me in the dark, just like that?"
Hearing it from him, you could not help but flinch. He was right, after all. You really had no right to keep this from him, but it also didn't mean that you could just stand there and let him ignore the problem that he had created in the first place.
"What if I was planning to just do that?" you questioned him in your outburst. "Shouldn't you be asking yourself just why I might have been thinking to do so? It's not like you've made things easy for me either, Taehyung."
The anger and annoyance you had seen in him slowly shifted, and he only looked at you with a frown when you continued, "We both know that you've hardly been around lately, and as much as I'm glad that you realised it, have you forgotten every other thing that has happened? We used to be a unit, Tae. What happened? You've forgotten about our promises, about me. I tried to understand all the changes that had happened with you and the changes between us ever since Mina came into your life, but do you even for a second think it was easy for me to deal with how much of a stranger you've become?"
You kept your eyes looking deep into his and saw remorse flickering in his gaze, and your breath was caught. No matter how angry you had been, the last thing you wanted was for him to hurt. But he needed to understand, so you simply continued calmly, "I figured since it had seemed that I was no longer important to you then you wouldn't even notice that I'm gone. You would forget about me soon anyway, just like how you have forgotten all the things you have told me and everything that we shared in the past, so maybe it would've made things easier for me to do it this way."
Because even if I no longer matter to you, it would never be the same for me, you kept the words to yourself, keeping the truth about how hard it would have been for you to say goodbye to him if you had been given a chance to.
Slowly, his expression changed. It had seemed that the reality of what was happening finally dawned on him and something inside of him snapped. "Easier for who?" he hissed angrily at you. "How could you even think—" he stopped, looking completely bewildered. "How could I ever forget about you?"
This time, when you smiled at him, it came out so easily. There was something about opening your wounds to him and letting him see the truth that took a lot of weight off of your body. Suddenly, it was starting to feel easier to simply accept the truth. To admit that your lives had changed and your path could no longer collide.
"Even if you haven't truly forgotten me yet, perhaps it's finally time that you do." You took a few steps closer to him and kissed him gently on his cheek, whispering to him, "Goodbye, Taehyung."
As you took a step back to continue your trip towards the departure gate, he stopped you by grabbing you by the wrist. There was something in his eyes that told you he was breaking inside. You could see the regret in his gaze even without him saying a word to you. As if he knew there was nothing else he could say to make you stay.
"Don't you dare think it would be so easy for me to simply let you go and forget you," he suddenly said with pain lathering his words, before surprising you further with what he said next. "You were my first love."
His confession tugged something inside you, though you could only give him a bitter smile. "Were. That's past tense," you told him, feeling content for some strange reason for accepting it. He must have seen it, because that was when he finally let you go.
Taehyung made no other move to stop you as you turned away from him, making your way towards the security gate while he stood there, watching you as you kept getting further and further away from and out of his life.
He was still staring at your shadows as you disappeared between the lines of people chasing for the flights, when the sound of his phone ringing inside his pocket caught his attention.
Reluctantly, he looked away, even if it made him feel more crushed inside, and pulled the phone out to answer the call. "Yes?" he absentmindedly said to the phone, and realised how distant his voice had sounded even to his ears.
"How did it go?" the voice from the other side of the call questioned him in a rush. "Where is she? Is she still boarding the plane?"
Taehyung closed his eyes. "Yes, she is. I can't—I couldn't do it, Jin. I don't have the power to stop her."
An exasperated sigh came from the call. "Did you tell her that? Did you even tell her the truth?"
"I just—" Taehyung sighed and opened his eyes. "I couldn't say a thing. I'm sorry. I wanted to, but then I remembered that I'd promised to always support her and let her chase her dreams no matter what."
Taehyung began shaking his head as his mind wandered to the past few months when everything began to change, and more regrets followed. "I thought that I would only get in her way, but I never thought that—" he sucked a deep breath when his emotions became too overwhelming—the regret, the pain of losing you, the sorrow for having to keep something from you—and his voice weakened when he continued, "I just never thought that I would be pushing her away from me, or that she would leave like this."
Silence fell through the call, and he could imagine Seokjin shaking his head the way he would when he was angry. "You and your promises, Taehyung. You have managed to keep one, but what about your other promises? Have you really forgotten about those? Did you really have to sacrifice the others just to keep this one?"
Taehyung released a deep breath. "I've never forgotten, Jin. I could never forget."
Another sigh came from his friend. "And yet you still can't keep it. I've warned you, Tae. I've told you so many times—"
"I know, Jin. I know," Taehyung quickly cut him off before he could start ranting about how his actions would lead to hurting you. The last thing he had ever wanted was to hurt you this way. And yet, he did the one thing he had promised himself not to do. "I'm an idiot, but—I had thought she would—"
I had thought she would understand, that she would never leave me. He wanted so badly to scream out those words. But he did no such thing when he knew how little it could change everything. I had thought that I could fix it before it was too late.
"What did you think would happen? That she would wait?" Seokjin scoffed, as if he could read his mind. "No, Taehyung. You have Mina now. You lost every chance you've ever had to fix everything when you kept choosing Mina over her, over and over again. Because that's the only thing that you've been showing her and that would always be the only thing she sees and understands. Maybe it's time to let her go. There's nothing you can do to fix this."
Taehyung wanted so badly to deny everything. He couldn't simply accept the fact that he had ruined things. Just as he thought about all the things that he had done to make this happen, about the web of lies that he had created for himself to hurt you, he could no longer hold back the tears from falling.
For a few short moments, Taehyung remained standing there even after the phone call had long ended, drowning in his sorrow. It took him a while before he finally managed to move, to finally leave while accepting his fate, completely unaware of the pair of eyes that had been watching him from the other side of the gate, looking at him through the curtain of tears for the last time before he was finally gone.
Ten Years Ago...
"Hey! Wait for me!"
You were running far ahead up the hills when you heard Taehyung shouting while he was struggling to keep up with you, though he was running not too far behind with his skinny and wobbly legs.
Looking over your shoulder, you grinned at your best friend. Not to laugh at how he was breathing heavily while running behind, but more because you were glad that he was still there. "Try to keep up, Tae. Or do you want me to let everyone know that you're letting yourself get beat by a girl?
"Hey!" he shouted back in protest, though he was still smiling when he was doing it. "One day—I'll be much taller than you are now, and I'll practice a lot so I could chase you and beat you in running up these hills."
Laughing at his vows, you stopped running and turned to face him with your hands resting on your hips. "Yeah right," you scoffed, then stood there to wait for him to keep up as you took the time to control your breath.
"I promise you, once I've grown—" he tried to speak between his ragged breath and stopped right next to you. He took a moment to gather himself and stood. "I will beat you then."
You smiled at him. "Oh, yeah? What are you going to do when that happens?"
His lips formed into his signature boxy grin then, and there was a glint of mischief appearing in his eyes when he answered, "I'm going to ask you out on a date."
His words got you laughing so hard that you had to hold your stomach. "Seriously? And what if I don't want to date?"
The mischief in his eyes grew brighter. "Then I'll wait until I'm a grown man and I will ask you to marry me."
This time, instead of laughing, you felt your cheeks burning and your heart pumping hard. Looking into his eyes, you suddenly felt like he was seeing right through you. Especially when his grin grew wider as if he knew what his words had done to you.
"Liar," you taunted him, though you were still unable to hide the shy smile growing wider on your face.
Taehyung scoffed. "I'm not a liar."
"Are you, really? If you won't come and chase me, then you are a liar," you shouted before running away from him, hiding your face from him when you couldn't stop smiling. You still had to constantly look over your shoulder as you kept running up the hills, pleased to see him still running close behind you. And it was then when you truly believed that he would always be there to follow you until the very end, until the day he was going to fulfil his promise.