17. THE SEA, THE SEA, THE SEA
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Afterwards it's quiet for a few minutes.
The air is now hanging thick and drowsy, harsh breathing dulling down to soft inhales. Yoongi and Taehyung don't speak or touch; exhausted, all they do is roll over to lie back, face the ceiling. All talk of past present future is put on hold for now.
It's weird how strangely calm Yoongi feels, even as his body roars like a thunder - his head a little dizzy, limbs a bit like jelly, blood still rushing like racing rivers. Maybe it's because he'd poured his urgency, his desperation, out into their language of bodies. Maybe he'd burned it all out right up, exchanged it for craving touches trailing places they shouldn't go, wrecked breaths cut shorter and shorter.
Whatever it is, whether the storm had settled or merely drew back over the horizon, Yoongi's a little calmer now, feels like the blue cast of storms when it stops pouring down but hasn't receded yet. He's more at ease, and there's heaviness slipping in between his bones, weighing him down to the mattress like an anchor. Beside him Taehyung is quiet, only laboured breaths escaping his lips an indication the boy hadn't gone to sleep.
Yoongi rolls over to face Taehyung, only to find him already staring back at him.
The sadness in Taehyung's eyes feels like the end of the line. He's looking at Yoongi wistfully, and Yoongi gets the feeling of things settling back down to the bottom of the box. It makes Yoongi want to curl into himself just so he won't have to feel Taehyung's gaze on him, but he doesn't.
Yoongi watches as Taehyung's eyes study the slope of Yoongi's nose, then the little furrow between his eyebrows, then his jaw, his lips, his collarbones. It feels intimate in a way Yoongi can't describe, and his breath hitches in his throat when Taehyung's gaze finally drifts up to meet Yoongi's own.
It hits Yoongi like a strike in his gut, knocks all air out of him. He sees it clearly now, right there in the way Taehyung is staring at Yoongi like he's already lost him.
Taehyung is leaving.
Yoongi would have to let go.
A tangle works its way into a lump, and Yoongi swallows. He thought he'd emptied out all the possible sadness in his body but somehow there's new tears leaking out of his eyes, a fresh pain slicing at his chest.
"You're going to leave, aren't you?" Yoongi asks quietly. It's not a question anymore. It sounds more like resignation.
Taehyung could only look back, gentle sadness in the way he stays quiet. You know what my answer is.
There's no more pleading left; Yoongi feels the fight drain out of him. He closes his eyes, inhales a sharp crisp breath.
And just like that it all comes rushing back.
Sunlight drifting in through windows on lazy Sunday mornings, Taehyung's fresh linen smell surrounding Yoongi, coffee brewing in the background and the TV turned on to a news show, Taehyung's nose nuzzling into Yoongi's neck to wake him up and Yoongi would laugh because it tickles and he can hear Taehyung's grin in his voice when he croons, it's past ten, Yoongi-yah, I've made your favorite omelette - come on, get up, baby.
The chilly winter air and white coating the entirety of Seoul, Taehyung's eyes widening when Yoongi drops to the ground on one knee, the choked-out yes yes yes, the ring that had fit like it'd meant to from the very start, Yoongi kissing Taehyung slow all flushed and red and giggly, their noses bumping, teeth clacking, and it had felt new all of a sudden, felt like the rush in Yoongi's blood back when he'd asked Taehyung to go on a date the first time around.
The bright excitement in Taehyung's grin, Yoongi unlocking the key to their new apartment, their boxes piled up in the front door, Yoongi unpacking potted plants to place in the living room, Taehyung stringing up Polaroids and pictures, ordering take-out that night halfway through cleaning, Taehyung pulling Yoongi to their bedroom at night all mischievous going forget about all this, how about you undress me instead, and when they sleep they're so close they're literally on top of each other, sharing a single blanket fished out from one of their boxes.
(Yoongi remembers waking up before dawn. Their bedroom had been tinged with light gray haze, half-opened boxes shoved to the corners. He's bleary with sleep, muscles straining with fatigue, and when he shifts he can feel a weight pulling around his waist. Yoongi looks down to find Taehyung hugging him snug, his nose dipping into Yoongi's collarbone.
Slowly lying back down, Yoongi smiles at Taehyung's small quiet snores, listens to their breathing for a few minutes. There's an easiness so light and content in his heart it spills over to his entire body, makes Yoongi feel like this is it. This is forever.
Taehyung tightens his grip, shoves his nose into Yoongi's neck with a tiny grunt, and Yoongi breaks out into a grin, falls back asleep the most happy he's ever been.)
And now Taehyung has let go, and Yoongi has to do the same.
There's the barest brush of fingers against Yoongi's skin, makes him open his eyes again even though it takes everything in him to do so. The ache spreads through his veins, weighs him down like a sedative.
Tokyo's fully in the dark now, and even the moon hides behind clouds, so there's little light to illuminate Taehyung. He looks lost in the shadows. Yoongi's heart twists sharp, because it is fitting - how Taehyung is already retreating into spaces where soon Yoongi won't be able to reach him in, how Taehyung is already out of touch, slivers of skin and the most vulnerable brown eyes the only glimpses left.
Yoongi raises a hand to cup Taehyung's own, the one ghosting Yoongi's cheek. Without a word he laces their fingers, brings their intertwined hands to the sheets between them instead. Taehyung shudders but doesn't say a word, only keeps tracing Yoongi's face like he'll never see it this exact way again.
For a moment Yoongi is silent.
Thoughts race around his mind, relentless, a bit too fast. It's been so long since he'd let his grief in, he thinks. He'd always repressed them, fending them at bay. It was easier, for a while – to slip a bookmark in between his grief, save it for later days. Pausing his emotions, shoving them deep and painting them pretty to hang as flowers in his mind, so they won't seem out of place.
Yoongi realizes now, that he'd paused his pain in hopes of Taehyung coming back.
That whatever it is between them had lost its way for a while, but nothing a little space and time could heal until Yoongi's ready to apologize and Taehyung's ready to accept again. That they'd find their way back to one another, back to that first day they'd moved in their new apartment, when they kiss slow and love hard and the future is anything, anything that they'd like it to be.
But – Yoongi had never moved on.
He'd hung on to Taehyung all this time, hung on to the ghost of them. Taehyung had never left. Yoongi had carried him in all the pieces he'd gathered – in all the pictures he shoved in a shoebox under his bed, in all the songs he'd composed up until now, in the ring still kept in his drawer untouched. He'd fooled no one but himself.
Yoongi had only disguised his grief with hope and called it healing, when all along he'd never even been able to face his own wounds.
"Yoongi-yah." Taehyung's voice streams in soft.
Yoongi can feel Taehyung staring, but he can't look back, so he studies the back of Taehyung's hand, the ridges of his knuckles. Studies with care how aligned their fingers are, Taehyung's larger hand fitting in perfect. It feels almost ironic. The sorrow gathers heavy under his heart, swells against Yoongi's throat.
"Yoongi-yah, please say something."
Maybe because separation feels final this time around. Maybe Yoongi's tired of putting up walls. Maybe Yoongi had so much to say throughout the years, and there's no other chances than this one left.
"Was I-" Yoongi pauses to lick his lips, his voice cracking a little still.
(It's getting harder to breathe, he thinks briefly. The sea is back in his lungs with a vengeance.)
Yoongi coughs, then tries again, "did I...did I fuck up that bad, Tae-ah? God, I thought we were enough. I thought what I did was enough, and I kept wondering afterwards...kept just thinking, how did I not see what an ass I was? I was- I'm so sorry, Taehyung-ah. I am so, so sorry. I didn't had enough left in me to love you, and yet I needed you to love me, and it's so selfish, so fucking selfish, I took you for granted and... and, God, I just..."
Yoongi pauses to breathe in a shuddering lungful of air. He feels jittery all over, a bit like he's facing confession in a church. But he also feels weirdly lighter, like those words had chained him down so long ago he'd simply accepted them as deadweight.
"I'm so sorry, Taehyung-ah. I'm sorry if you weren't happy with me."
(Now they're out, however heavy it was to speak them. It is a relief.)
Taehyung looks stunned, as if hit by lightning. His lips slowly part open, but he only blinks again, and again, and all he says at first with slow confusion is a drawn-out "Yoongi-yah, what..." and then there's a wrecked noise sounding from the back of Taehyung's throat, something like pebbles shaken loose, and he's shaking his head now, shaking his head so frantically, so forcefully.
Taehyung's lips part again only to make the same wrecked whimper, and this time it goes through Yoongi like thunder, rumbles in his bones, and the numb he's nursing comes close to physically drowning.
(The sea, the sea, the sea.)
Yoongi inhales a quick, startled breath when Taehyung abruptly sits up, still shaking his head. He follows, a bit more slow, and stays quiet as Taehyung shifts closer and closer until their knees touch. The younger's hands lace through Yoongi's, the movement impossibly gentle.
"No," Taehyung sounds strained, like he's about to cry or yell or maybe both. "No, Yoongi-yah, no. Never." There's a pained look in his eyes, his chest heaving, his arms reaching out to brush Yoongi's collarbone and the shell of his ears and finally back down to his cheeks. His touches are quick, light, like Yoongi's fragile.
"You-you have made me so happy, Yoongi-yah. So incredibly happy." Taehyung shakes his head in disbelief, his tears pouring out, and in his eyes there is a love so deep Yoongi could only stop, stop moving, stop breathing for a second or two, "how could you ever- ever think otherwise?" Taehyung's breathing is raspy when he shuts his eyes as if in pain, and then opens them again. Yoongi feels Taehyung's fingers tremble a little.
"God, Yoongi-ah, you've...you've made me so happy. Every moment with you shined. I have loved like I never thought I would. I still do. I love you, Min Yoongi. Thank you- thank you for loving me."
"No. No, don't say it like that," Yoongi's breath hitches sharp, "as if- as if you're saying goodbye. Don't, Taehyung-ah."
"But it is true, Yoongi-yah." Taehyung is looking at him with a broken heart and the most delicate smile and it hurts so much. Yoongi's crying now, clutching onto Taehyung's elbow, tugging at him to stop Taehyung from speaking but it doesn't work. Yoongi wants to cup his ears close so he won't hear the next words come. "Yoongi-ah, I really did. I loved you so much. You've given me...you've made me one of the happiest I've been, and I've never forgotten any of it, not any- not any single one of it. Look at- Yoongi-yah, look at me. Look at me. Please."
It's the please, spoken so softly, that makes Yoongi finally look back up again.
"Yoongi-yah, hey." Taehyung draws him in close to gather him in his arms. His hands gently slip around Yoongi's waist, and Yoongi instinctively goes to rest his head on Taehyung's shoulder. He breathes in fresh linen again, and he sees the warm expanse of Taehyung's skin dotted here and there with moles and the occasional outline of a faded scar, the ridges of Taehyung's curved spine, and he wonders if this will be the last time he'll ever be this close.
One of Taehyung's hand slides up into Yoongi's hair, tangling itself gently, and he cradles Yoongi in his lap. They stay this way for awhile, skin on skin and hands on each other and red-rimmed eyes shut in shared understanding.
Yoongi wishes this could last forever.
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A/N: it's been a while, but i hope you still like it. take care, please, stay safe and warm and be kind to everyone, most importantly yourself ❤️