Three days after Taehyung was discharged, he was allowed back in his apartment, but looking at his new home that wasn't a dorm room made his insides twitch. He was living alone, and the apartment was big. A king-sized bedroom, a big kitchen with counter and dining table. There was a sofa and tv on the other side and one guest room.
It was the perfect house Taehyung had dreamt of having from the beginning of his college life.
He looked at his workroom, having colors smeared all over the blankets and some on the walls.
Taehyung was tempted to remove the clothes and check his paintings, but his hyungs didn't allow him to. They forced him to stay on the bed and rest while Jimin or Yoongi would constantly be around to take care of him.
Taehyung felt like a burden to his friends. They had to care for a grown-ass man instead of moving on with their life, but he quickly shook away these thoughts. Part of his heart knows that if any other friend had suffered this fate, he would've dropped everything to help and care for them. That's how they always had worked like. They were his second family, connected through love, trust, and care.
However, that's not what his main concern was. Taehyung didn't feel anything during his stay at the hospital, but now, staring at the ceiling, he felt so empty. He looked at the other side, where Jimin was sleeping next to him, with arms tightly locked around his body, but somehow he still felt empty and cold.
The only light in the room was due to the street lights, and through these lights, he could almost picture himself standing near the big glass window with two muscular arms wrapped around his waist.
Blinking his eyes, he stared at the glass windows, shut tightly but half-covered with curtains.
Black curtains.
Taehyung never liked black. During his college years, he had always thought that color made him feel like he was staring at the void.
Then why would he put black curtains? Did his elder self take out a new meaning of this color? Maybe he did.
Taehyung didn't want to think about it, didn't want to imagine himself standing there, didn't want to imagine arms around his waist or the ghost of touch that he felt, so he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
Sleep was a luxury when he was in college because of having endless projects, assignments, and the number of notes he had to go through. But now, when he is over that college phase and has enough time to sleep, he doesn't even feel like doing it.
Somehow, he still managed to drift off, maybe because of the medicines or the embrace of Jimin, which no longer feels warm, but he's thankful anyway.
Waking up the next day, he took a shower, confused at the change in his taste in the products. The products he is using now don't have any additional smell, and even if it's not that bad, he doesn't understand why.
He had always liked scented products in the past. Does being older change his lifestyle?
He went out of the shower and wore a black oversized t-shirt, three sizes bigger than his usual one, and Taehyung took time to sort out clothes in his closet, finding that half of his clothes were black, oversized shirts or shorts.
Taehyung knows that he likes baggy clothes, but not to the extent that they would reach his mid-thighs or keep slipping off his shoulders.
However, he didn't want to remove it, so wearing that, he went to the kitchen to see Yoongi smiling at him. "I hope you had a good sleep, Taehyung-ah. " The male says, wearing an apron and flipping an omelet. He could see Jimin standing on the balcony, practicing for his upcoming dance, and maybe this was something that didn't change even after growing up.
Even while staying in the dorms, Jimin used to come over, more often than usual, to do his dance practice while Yoongi made breakfast for them while he would be busy studying or drawing.
"None of us have changed, Taehyung-ah, except for having real jobs and different apartments. We all are the same and have been following old routines. " The elder says, passing him a glass of coffee, and Taehyung nods, not knowing what to say.
Soon, Jimin also joined them, and even if he frowned at looking at the shirt he was wearing, he didn't question it and silently munched on the omelet that Yoongi gave him.
Later that day, Jimin and Yoongi washed the dishes while Taehyung was forced to stay in bed because they didn't want him to work for a while. While living in the dorms, he used to do cleaning work, but here, both of his hyungs told him to stay on the bed until his wounds healed.
Even his job in the cafe was on hold. He was thankful for that.
Yoongi went to work, and Taehyung had been told that the male was living his dream life, working as a music producer under a famous entertainment company, while Jimin was a dance instructor in the college where they studied.
After breakfast, Yoongi left, but Jimin stayed glued to him, cuddling on the sofa till he asked that he wanted to see his drawings.
One by one, Taehyung removed the blanket and stared at those drawings with a confused face.
The first one is of a man with a tattooed arm. He was bulky and posing in front, wearing a black tee and sweatpants. His face wasn't made, but Taehyung could see a man bun, piercings on both ears. "Can you tell me in detail what happened, Jimin?" Taehyung found himself asking the male next to him.
"For a month, you were sad. We didn't know why, but you spent most of you're time here in this room, drawing. I have seen your paintings many times, but I still don't know why you made so many drawings of a man and who he is. " Jimin says, hands curled on Taehyung's chest, chin on his shoulder, as he back-hugged him, rocking from left to right.
Taehyung hummed at the male's answer and proceeded to another.
It was also of another man or maybe the same. He doesn't know.
But the man was covered in black. His clothes served as a contrast to the pink background that Taehyung guessed was of the Han River. The man lay on the green grass, gazing above, one hand behind his head.
It was drawn so beautifully that Taehyung almost thought it was a picture. He never knew he could draw that well. "Do you have any guesses whom I could draw?" Taehyung asked, looking at the third picture of the same man.
This time, he knew it was the same man and the same illusion he had last night.
The man was standing on the balcony of his house, a body caged into his arms. The man in black was kissing the smaller one's neck, but their faces were hidden because of the dark.
Taehyung was amazed and scared by his elder self's creativity and wondered if he started going mad at one point because of how much time he had spent alone.
"Not really. As I said, you became so cut off from us that we didn't know with whom you talked beside us or if there was someone in your life about whom you didn't tell us. You were fine, all happy and playful with us, but suddenly we lost contact. We tried coming to you, but you had locked yourself in this room. You said it's because you have commissions pending, but we knew you don't keep your work pending. You had suddenly accepted twenty commissions for a week, which scared us for your health. You somehow managed to complete every single one, and we even saw some of them featured in the art gallery, but you never said anything. As if you don't even feel anything about it. "
Taehyung hummed silently to it. He doesn't know what to say about that. In college, Taehyung had always thought that if he became a famous artist, he wouldn't have to worry his parents about his expenses, even if they earned enough to support him till his death, but his younger self never thought he would separate himself from his friends and family because of his art.
"Do I still have pending requests?" Taehyung asked.
"I don't know, Tae, but I'm not letting you work in this condition. You just got discharged. " Jimin said, but he shook his head.
"I don't mean that. I wanna know if the man I drew is also among those who commissioned me. I think that man meant so much to me, but maybe I never got the courage to tell you guys, or I would never have these many paintings of him. "
Jimin furrowed his brows at him in a way when he knew that the other was silently judging him but sighed and took out his phone.
He tapped a few times before opening his account and giving him the phone. "I always had the passwords and the lists of people who commissioned from you to check and see that they won't be some crazy ass stalker who would try to hack or follow you in real life. "
Taehyung looked at his account, and strangely, he felt nothing.
He went through the list, but no one looked familiar, or he felt any connection to it. However, there was no pending list, and his commissions were closed.
It made Taehyung wonder if he knew he would get into an accident that he completed and closed his commission.
Was he really suicidal?
Was the work pressure making him suicidal?
But he wasn't that workaholic, not even in college. Does the elder him really change that much?
"You're zoning out again. " Jimin said and gently traced his cheeks with his chubby fingers. Taehyung always found them cute and was glad they were still the same.
"You used to zone like this too before. I still don't understand why, but please don't do anything stupid. " Jimin's voice had concern hidden in it, and Taehyung knew that.
"I'm sorry. "
Sorry for causing you so much trouble.
Sorry for being so secretive that you couldn't even understand me after knowing me from childhood.
Sorry for everything.
"You don't have to be. I'll cook lunch, yeah? We can watch something. " Jimin says and pulls Taehyung with him, pocketing his phone.
Taehyung let himself be dragged all over the house. Jimin cooked lunch for them, and they both ate in silence, then cuddled in front of the television, watching whatever Jimin insisted.
But Taehyung's mind wandered to the man he saw in his portraits.
Does he have a crush other than what he had in college? Was he finally over the man he crushed on for whole three years?
Taehyung knows the details he put on the man. The tattoos on his arm weren't some scribbles but were made carefully with expertise, and he knows that he never paid that much attention to anyone.
Every stroke and every color on that arm forms a pattern, and he might be creative, but not this much that he could make a whole tattooed arm based on his imagination. It has to be a person he knew well or someone his elder self considered his muse.
Because these paintings looked like he painted that man when he stood in front of him, posed like a model for Taehyung, or maybe it was just plain memory that he had traced those tattoos and stored them in his mind forever.
Later that night, Namjoon and Jin came with Yoongi, and for the first time after his discharge, Taehyung saw all of them eating together. They all laughed together, talked about college, and filled Taheyung with the memories he had forgotten and about the people who might come to meet him. After dinner, Jimin and Yoongi left because of their work, and Namjoon because he had a case in his hands, but Jin stayed with him.
Taehyung knows that his hyung is broader than him, but he realizes better when they sleep on the same bed together.
Jin had never denied Taehyung's request for cuddles. Since a young age, Taehyung liked to slip inside the elder's room to hold and cuddle with him, and because of that, even their parents put their beds together, but this time when Taehyung wrapped his arms around Jin, he felt tears prickle in his eyes. He doesn't know why.
If Jimin's company made him feel empty, Jin's presence was a stab to his heart. He felt as if someone had pulled his heart out of his chest and squeezed it so tight that he could no longer breathe, except for the tears that stained the elder's shirt.
Jin had woken up panicked and horrified to see Taehyung crying, and he desperately tried to know the reason, but how could Taehyung tell him that he didn't know the answer to his tears as well?
He was so confused, and finally, Jin seemed to understand, so he just let Taehyung cry on his shirt, not caring if it got wet. The elder rocked him in his hold like a kid, telling him everything would be fine, but for a moment, Taehyung knew nothing would be.
Taehyung slept feeling empty and hollow.
The next day, he got up, stared at his puffy, red eyes, and went to his bathroom to shower.
The color of the windows bothered him, but he stayed quiet.
The lack of smell from his products made him twitchy, but he said nothing.
He went to his closet, and this time, he avoided those big shorts and instead went for a pale green shirt and brown pants.
Jin greeted him with a smile, but he didn't mention last night's incident, and Taehyung was thankful for that.
He spent the rest of the day moping all over the house, confused, not knowing what to do.
Jin had prepared lunch, taught him how to heat it in the oven, which was different from the one he had used in the past, took his phone, locked his art room, and took the keys. The only consolation was the television, which had nothing of his liking, and he fell asleep to the sound of the TV as background noise.
The night came, and again the hyungs came to stay over. They talked and laughed together, filled Taehyung with some new past memories (according to him), and watched movies until they decided to call it a day.
That night, they all stayed in Taehyung's apartment. Namjoon was sprawled out on the sofa. Yoongi and Jimin were in the guest room, and Jin and Taehyung were in another.
Despite thousands of pleads, Namjoon didn't accept sleeping next to Taehyung. He said he might take too much space, considering his size and Taehyung's habit of taking more space than usual.
It was when Taehyung realized that Namjoon looked more buffer than he was in college.
It suits him, and he looks nice.
Slowly, Taehyung realized that despite being with so many different choices and opinions, they all still managed to stay strong till now as a group.
Well, Taehyung knows that Jin and Jimin will never leave him. Jin was his own blood brother and Jimin his eternal soulmate since the age of diapers, so he wasn't even surprised when he saw them after realizing he had lost his memory.
He knows that they will stay with him.
But Namjoon was studying law during college, and Taehyung remembers in the last pieces of his memory that Jin and Namjoon had a rough relationship.
They both struggled to keep their relationship afloat because of their different backgrounds. Namjoon is a law student, while Jin is a surgeon. They never had time to spare for each other and were too scared to lose each other.
However, he is glad his hyungs stayed together even after so many years and were now happily married.
While for Jimin met Yoongi through Taehyung because they both were roommates.
Yoongi's stoic expression and cold glances with the ability to maintain a poker face, despite the funniest jokes, had charmed his soulmate since the start.
Jimin didn't realize when he fell hard for the elder, but Taehyung knew that from inside, Yoongi was a soft person with a rough background, which was why he didn't trust Jimin with his advances.
Jimin was a big flirt and could seduce anyone with his charms. Taehyung had both envied and admired the other for that, and maybe it was why Yoongi was so scared to open up to him.
Jimin does give a fuckboy vibe.
Jimin would've sliced his throat down if he could hear his thoughts.
However, he doesn't know how Jimin and Yoongi fell in love and get married, and suddenly seeing them sucking each other's faces, rather than Jimin running behind Yoongi, was strange for him.
But that's okay.
He had always seen people falling in love in front of him, while he had stayed like this.
Alone.