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kookstempo · 2 years ago

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better late than never? 🥺🥺

Saturday, December 22nd

LOOK IT’S YOUR BDAY, HAPPY BDAY

But as soon as you get home, your parents – especially your mother – seem to think you need rules and routine again, like you’re still fourteen.

uhhh 😐 no?

You even miss Jimin and Jin a little bit, Jungkook too.

EVERYONE BUT YOONGI AND I JUST REALIZED THIS NOW DJFKAJDJSAIAJAJ

You don’t really get time to wallow, though, because Nina texts you shortly after lunch asking to hang out.

get lost, bitch

You love Nina, despite everything. And Nina loves you, even though sometimes it feels like she hates you, too.

🥴🥴🥴💖

“C’s get degrees,” you tell her, and she laughs.

i will keep that in mind 👀

“You got me a tiny coffee maker?” you whisper, feeling damn near tears.

i’m gonna- i need a minute

“Yeah,” you admit. “I went back the next day. Luckily it was still there. Do you like it? You can exchange it if -.”

they’re so- 😭😭😭😭😭

But Nina only knows the barest of details about what’s been going on with you and Taehyung. Nina barely knows Taehyung at all.

yeah, stupid nina

“Where does that go, though?” Nina asks, not unkindly. “Eventually, someone wants more or someone wants out. It’s an equilibrium that can’t last that long.”

she rained on our parade and i’m just making that analysis-

“Me,” he says, smiling lazily. “Grades went up yesterday, I got a C+ for Watanabe.

c’s gEt degrEeS

[12:46 AM] Kiko✌️: Yoongi just texted me

uH HELLO?

“He sent me a fucking track about me.”

min yoongi cómO TE ATREVES?

But she never said shit to me forthright

😳😳😳😳😳😳😳

I know I won’t survive unless I’m ice,

jesus christ…

can you take a look and see if you have any ideas?

no but you can go fU-

He gives you the softest smile. “Two more days until you come home.”

home ):

It means he’s nervous, too. You know that much about him.

just get married already

He gives your hand a tug, giving you a cutely pleading look that you’ve come to learn means he wants a hug or a cuddle.

❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 baby

Being with Taehyung is easy, not work. How had you forgotten that in eight days?

she can be a little dummy

“I don’t plan to,” he says, his tone implying that he’s having an entirely different conversation, suddenly. You feel your face go hot, and you busy yourself by finishing what’s in your pint glass.

nO NEED OK

“Don’t worry,” he says, shooting you a sideways, flirtatious grin. “I left glowing reviews.”

he better

He wraps an arm over your shoulders, still looking up.

aaaah 🙇🏻‍♀️❤️‍🩹

“I was looking for Cassiopeia,” he says, and points. “My grandmother always said it was hers - I still don’t know what she meant by that; she died before I was old enough to want to ask. But it’s kind of a habit for me to look for it in the winter.”

first of all: ouch. second of all: taehyung was looking for constellations during the day 🤡

“I don’t want to fuck this up, but I have to tell you. I want to be with you. I want you to be mine - really mine, only mine.”

[deep sigh]

“Just hurt me,” you finally whisper, your voice barely audible. Your throat gets so tight that it actually hurts, and you shift your gaze to the ground as your eyes fill with tears. It was like saying the words out loud brought the truth of them to the present - makes it feel like the inevitable hurt is already happening now instead of maybe someday. You’re fucking angry that you’re crying, too.

wow- ouch. jo, you’ve outdone yourself again.

Taehyung wraps his arms back around you and pulls tight, pressing his lips to the top of your head.

fkkektkgkdosodkz 😫😫😫

“I can promise you,” he says seriously, looking at you, “that this isn’t just going to go away for me. We passed that point a long time ago. We passed that point when we were still on Strindberg.”

jO?! POR QUÉ?

“But for the record… that’s what I want. When you’re ready.”

)))))): i’m sobbing

Chapter 11: Home || KTH

(banner by @itaeewon)

Title: What Was Hidden (Masterpost)

Rating: explicit, minors DNI pls

Genre: college!au, angst, eventual smut, strangers -> friends -> lovers -> idiots -> lovers

Pairings: Taehyung x female reader, MYG x OC

Summary: This is how it all starts: Taehyung is flunking Western Lit. You’re assigned to tutor him. His paper on Strindberg��s The Ghost Sonata could pass or fail him for the semester. As you and Taehyung slowly become friends, then more, you learn that there’s a lot more to him than you originally assumed. Together, you navigate your own experiences with the play’s themes: one’s “true self” versus one’s “shown self”, darkness behind the facade, and how people can be quite literally haunted - and it has nothing to do with ghosts.

In which you go home for the winter holidays, alone.

Chapter Warnings: language, drinking, more bad rap lyrics i'm still really sorry, the angst begins a little bit

Word Count: 4.7k

I saw the sun and thought I saw what was hidden The Ghost Sonata | Scene III August Strindberg

Chapter 11: Home

Saturday, December 22nd

Leaving is harder than you expected it to be.

“It’s eight days,” you tell yourself, out loud, as you load your overnight bag into the backseat of the car. This will likely be your mantra the whole time. You make sure you have what you need for the drive home – a full tank of gas, air in your tires, a to-go cup of coffee in the cup holder, and your phone plugged in and ready to play good music the whole way.

Taehyung stands beside your car, arms crossed against the cold because he didn’t feel like putting on a coat.

“You’re going to freeze,” you tell him. “Go inside.”

“I’m going,” he says, reaching to pull you into his arms. You sink into it, let him hold you, let yourself feel cared for and happy for a few seconds.

You don’t want to go. You’ll miss his smile, his laugh, his dumb-ass jokes. You’ll miss his bed, the sanctuary of his room, the way he always looks out for what you might need.

It’s eight days.

“Be good,” you tell him.

“Medium-good,” he jokes.

You fake a frown. “Not funny, Taehyung.”

He kisses the top of your head and releases you. You open the car door and settle in, reaching for the belt buckle.

“Drive safe,” he says. “I’ll facetime you tonight.”

He’s still in the yard, freezing like a fool, when you put on your blinker and turn off the end of his street.

Sunday, December 23rd

Being home is weird for a lot of reasons.

For starters, it’s strange to have to answer to your parents again regarding your decisions. You do a pretty decent job at school of keeping yourself fed, work completed, all that stuff. But as soon as you get home, your parents – especially your mother – seem to think you need rules and routine again, like you’re still fourteen.

“It’s eight days,” you tell yourself, when your mother wakes you up at eight thirty in the morning, telling you it’s not good to sleep the whole day away.

You miss waking up on your own terms, having the cafeteria available almost all hours of the day, miss the coffee shop. You miss Kiko and Bridget.

It goes without saying that you already miss Taehyung.

You even miss Jimin and Jin a little bit, Jungkook too.

You don’t really get time to wallow, though, because Nina texts you shortly after lunch asking to hang out. You don’t really have a good reason to say no, even though you don’t feel excited about the plans. Maybe here, in your natural habitat, things will be back to normal?

She greets your parents and you sequester in your room, door shut. She flops sideways across your bed, the way she’s been doing since you were little kids. You feel a bit of guilt about how things have been with you two. Nina is part of who you are, she’s intrinsically part of your make-up.

She’s the friend who was there when you fell off your bike the day before fifth grade and skinned up both knees and an elbow, the friend whom you told every secret in the dark, the friend who kept you laughing on long car rides, the friend you told about your first crush, your first kiss, your first time.

She’s the friend you took prom pictures with, the friend you got drunk with for the first time ever, the friend who held your hair when you were regretting that decision later. You’d both cried when you moved away to school your freshman year.

You love Nina, despite everything. And Nina loves you, even though sometimes it feels like she hates you, too. Somehow it’s both. Somehow, over the last year, it’s turned into both.

“So, what’s new? What have I missed?” you ask.

She shrugs, “Not a lot. I passed all my finals, but my math one was a close call.”

“C’s get degrees,” you tell her, and she laughs.

“What about you?” she asks finally. “Want to fill me in on Taehyung? Are you guys fucking?”

You blush, and she looks at you with renewed interest. “Wow, you are?” she asks.

“I mean, it’s not just that,” you say, a little defensively.

“What, you like him?” she clarifies. “Is he like… your boyfriend?”

“No,” you say, and immediately feel guilty for how quick you are to blurt that out. “We’ve only gone on one date.”

“Wow,” she says, like she needs time to process this. “You’re dating… I got the impression that he was kind of… vapid.”

“You judged his pretty face,” you say lightly, because you had done the same thing the night Nina met Taehyung.

But then, you aren’t sure what to say after that. The easy rapport you used to have has evaporated like morning dew under a steadily rising summer sun. Somehow after over ten years of friendship, there just isn’t that much to say.

Tuesday, December 25th

“Okay, are you ready?”

“I can’t take you seriously in that hat,” you tell Taehyung, who beams at you on the screen of your phone. He’s in an ugly Christmas sweater, with a Santa hat on his head. There are twelve minutes of Christmas Day left, and you’re finally opening each other’s gifts.

He ignores the jab. “On the count of three… one… two…”

You rip into the wrapping paper and he exclaims in protest but then accepts defeat and begins to open his own. You turn the box in your hands, eyebrows raised.

“You got me a tiny coffee maker?” you whisper, feeling damn near tears.

“It’ll fit in your dorm,” he tells you proudly. “Now you can use the mug in the dorm and have coffee before you even leave the building.”

“Oh, my gosh,” you say, overcome with emotion. “I don’t think I’ve ever loved anything this much in my whole life.”

He beams at you, proud of himself.

“Your turn,” you tell him.

He reaches off-screen and returns with the little bundle you’d wrapped.

“It’s not as good as a coffee maker,” you tell him, feeling weirdly nervous. Your stomach stirs in anticipation. What if he thinks it’s dumb, or boring?

He glances up at you - or rather, at his screen – reassuringly. Then he’s focused on the wrapping paper, pulling it away in long strips.

He holds up the black and white scarf he’d been eyeing at the Christmas festival, running his fingers along the soft material.

“I thought you liked that one,” you say, embarrassed.

“I did,” he says, voice a little disbelieving. “You went back for it?”

“Yeah,” you admit. “I went back the next day. Luckily it was still there. Do you like it? You can exchange it if -.”

“I love it,” he assures you. “I was thinking when I saw it that night that this would go really well with my grey coat.”

“Good,” you say, relieved. “I’m glad you like it, Taehyung.”

He runs his hands over it again. “I’m glad you like yours.”

You both lapse into silence; it’s late, you’re tired, and there’s a lot of things running through your head. Some of them you don’t want to say over a facetime call; some of them you don’t want to say, period. Some of them you don’t even want to think, so you push them down, focus on something else.

“Four days left,” Taehyung says, reading your mind.

“I know,” you say quietly.

You expect him to say he misses you, that he’s excited for Sunday – when you leave your parents’, something. But instead he just watches you carefully.

It feels, somehow, like a standoff.

“Merry Christmas, Taehyung,” you whisper finally.

“Merry Christmas,” he says. You get the feeling that he, too, has things he’s trying not to say.

Thursday, December 27th

Nina talks you into a night out with some of your high school friends. You make her swear Erin won’t be there before agreeing. You also barely get dressed up - you definitely don’t bother with a curling iron.

You text a selfie to Taehyung and add, “Going out with the giiiiiiirls ✌️”.

[7:33 PM] Taehyung: dont kiss any meatheads

[7:33 PM] You: so non-meatheads are okay tho?

[7:34 PM] Taehyung: whatever u gotta do to cope with my absence

“Look at Y/N smiling at her phone,” one of the girls giggles. “You have a new guy? I haven’t seen anything on your socials.”

“Some guy she ‘isn’t dating’,” Nina supplies, with exaggerated air quotes. “He’s in a frat.”

The girls react to this in various ways. You think about how this situation must look to them; from the outside, you and Nina are as tight as ever. They probably assume Nina knows every single detail about your life, that her word must be correct. But Nina only knows the barest of details about what’s been going on with you and Taehyung. Nina barely knows Taehyung at all.

You wish you were out with Kiko and Bridget, instead. You feel like a truer version of yourself when you’re with them. How would they have summarized the situation differently? You feel like Bridget would have said, “They’re both so in love they can’t function,” and you would have hit her. Kiko would have played the middle a little better. But they both know the truth way better than Nina - Taehyung isn’t just some guy to you.

“Tell us!” one of the girls that you like, but you’ve never been particularly close with, asks.

You’re already uncomfortable - you hate being the center of attention this way. You wish you had anything you could deflect with.

“There’s not much to tell,” you say, and you’re painfully aware that it feels like a lie coming out of your mouth. “Like Nina said… we went on one date, we’re not a thing.”

“Would you go out again?” someone asks.

“Sure,” you shrug. “We hang out all the time as it is.”

The girl frowns. “So is it like a friends with benefits thing?”

You consider this. “I guess I’d say no,” you say. “I mean, I think we both have pretty obvious not friendship feelings. We just… I don’t know, we aren’t exclusive, we haven’t put a name to it. I prefer it this way.”

“Where does that go, though?” Nina asks, not unkindly. “Eventually, someone wants more or someone wants out. It’s an equilibrium that can’t last that long.”

It’s a valid point, but you’d rather have this conversation without four other pairs of eyes on you, waiting for a response.

“We’re just seeing how it goes,” you say, very aware of how you and Taehyung haven’t discussed this at all.

The conversation shifts, thank god, and you sip at your drink. But you leave your phone in your pocket for the rest of the night, ignoring the vibrations against your leg until you’re in the privacy of your own home.

Friday, December 28th

“Guess what,” you ask Taehyung as you laze around on your bed, the facetime call open on your phone.

“What?” he asks, voice drowsy.

“I got my tutoring list for the spring semester today,” you say. “And guess who isn’t on it?”

“Me,” he says, smiling lazily. “Grades went up yesterday, I got a C+ for Watanabe.”

You give him an air-five and he giggles, returning it.

You’re still chatting a few minutes later when your phone notifies you of an incoming text -

[12:44 AM] Kiko✌️: Y/N

[12:45 AM] Kiko: holy fuck

You click it quickly and send back a series of question marks before returning to Taehyung.

“Something’s going on with Kiko,” you tell him, frowning. “She just sent me a very weird text.”

[12:46 AM] Kiko✌️: Yoongi just texted me

“I have to go,” you tell Taehyung, the words tumbling out of your mouth in a rush. “Something’s happening with her and Yoongi - I’ll call you back.”

“Bye,” he says, waving as you click to end the call.

You call Kiko immediately, and she answers on the second ring.

“What did he say?” you demand.

She doesn’t answer but you can hear her breathing so fast it’s like she’s hyperventilating.

“Kiko?” you prod. “What happened?”

She takes a steadying breath. “He just fucking sent me a Soundcloud link, like completely out of the blue, no preamble, no explanation.”

“What was it?” you ask, your heart beating fast.

“It’s about me,” she says with a deprecating laugh. “He sent me a fucking track about me.”

“Is it like… a diss track?”

“No,” she says. “I mean, it takes a shot at me for sure but not in a malicious way. And nothing that isn’t true. Just listen to it, I’m sending it now.”

“Okay, but I’m calling you back right after!” you tell her, and then the screen goes black. A second later the text comes in: Snow Angel - MYG.

You click it as fast as you can. Yoongi’s voice comes in, deep and powerful, raw in its honesty as always.

Staggering steps through a cold night We walked each other’s mazes without sight She appeared like an angel bathed in light But she never said shit to me forthright Made of ice, to the blizzard she belongs Solid ice, shit, I can’t be that strong Been watching the snow fall all night long I still can’t tell you where it went wrong I just can’t hate the blizzard that I walk through Were you reaching for a hand to hold like me, too? Solid ice, shit, but I love the view I know I won’t survive unless I’m ice, too

She sends a screenshot of their conversation next.

[12:39 AM] Yoongi: Snow Angel - MYG.mp3

[12:40 AM] Kiko: with all due respect…. what the fuck

[12:41 AM] Yoongi: got stuck halfway through this track. need chorus, bridge, and maybe another 1-2 verses. can you take a look and see if you have any ideas?

[12:43 AM] Kiko: you have a lot of fucking nerve, Min Yoongi

[12:44 AM] Yoongi: that’s fair i guess. just listen to the track, ok?

You listen to it twice more and then call her back.

“Um, holy shit,” you greet her when she picks up.

“I know,” she says glumly. “I’m the fucking ice queen, apparently.”

“Holy. Shit,” you repeat. You feel dumbfounded. “Kiko, oh my god.”

“I know,” she says, your entire conversation just going in circles.

“Did you say anything to him? After you listened to it?” you ask.

“No,” she admits. “I haven’t said anything. I don’t know what to say.”

You’re both quiet for a minute.

“Are you okay?” you ask her finally.

It takes her a while to find her voice. “I don’t know,” she says, which for her is huge. “I don’t know what I’m feeling right now. I just… want to cry.”

“I wish we weren’t at home,” you say, frowning. “I wish you and me and Bridg could talk this out over pizza or something.”

She sighs. “Is it dumb that like… I’m happy he reached out? Even if it was to drop - essentially - work in my lap, and also insult me?”

You laugh. “I don’t know if I’d take it as an insult. You said yourself that you were too closed off. Maybe he’s just… explaining himself.”

“I’d rather he just fucking talk to me about it,” Kiko grumbles.

“That’s valid,” you agree. “Are you going to add to the track?”

“I dunno,” she admits. “I’ll think about it.”

You spend a little more time on the phone with her, making sure she’s okay. When you finally hang up, you call Taehyung back.

“What happened?” he asks immediately.

“So,” you say, trying to collect your thoughts, “Yoongi texted her after weeks of silence and sent her a track about her.”

Taehyung is silent, his face stunned. “Please send it to me,” he finally begs.

“Okay,” you say, tapping to open your texts, “but don’t say anything to him. I don’t want him to know Kiko sent it to me immediately. Let’s maintain her dignity a little.”

He agrees and ends the call to listen to the track. Within minutes, his face is lighting up your screen again.

“Wow, shots fired,” he says to you, eyes wide.

“That’s what Kiko thinks too,” you say. “But… I feel like it’s more of an explanation. Maybe I’m giving him too much credit?”

“You might be,” Taehyung says. “I don’t know. I won’t survive unless I’m ice, too? That’s… yeah, I see what you’re saying, that’s like… why he cut things off?”

“Exactly,” you say, excited. “Maybe there’s hope for them?”

“I think right now… that depends on her and what she does next,” Taehyung muses.

You talk a bit more, chatting about being home again - how your mom is driving you up the walls, how he loves being back with his little dog, Tannie - and you start getting sleepy. Taehyung notices your eyes drooping, your yawns coming more and more often.

“Want to go to sleep?” he asks quietly.

“No,” you say stubbornly. “I want to keep talking to you.”

He gives you the softest smile. “Two more days until you come home.”

Home. He says it so casually, so easily. Like he has no doubts that home is with him.

For some reason, this tugs on your heart; it makes you happy and sad, and you can’t really put your finger on why.

“Yeah,” you whisper, giving him the tiniest smile. “Two days.”

Is Taehyung ‘home’?

And if he’s not… could he be?

Sunday, December 30th

You aren’t allowed back on campus until Wednesday, so when you leave your parents' house, you plug the directions to Jin’s house into your phone.

You’re in a good mood as you drive - music playing, the sun shining, a hot coffee in a travel mug beside you.

When you park out front of Jin’s sometime after noon, Taehyung comes out to help you drag your suitcase up the steps. As you follow him up the narrow staircase towards the bedrooms upstairs, your eyes watching the muscles on his arms flex as he goes, you feel strangely nervous. Will things be weird now that you’ve been away for over a week? Will you have to start at square one again?

In Taehyung’s room, he pushed your suitcase over next to his bureau as you close the door behind yourself.

You’re feeling prickly, defensive, definitely anxious. Taehyung seems to read the unease in your face and takes your fingers in his gently.

“How was the drive?” he asks quietly, tongue sneaking out to wet his lips quickly.

It means he’s nervous, too. You know that much about him.

“It was actually fine,” you tell him. “I expected more traffic.”

“I think tomorrow will be heavier,” he says knowingly. He gives your hand a tug, giving you a cutely pleading look that you’ve come to learn means he wants a hug or a cuddle. You allow yourself to be pulled closer and then you wrap your arms around his back, burying your face in his shirt as he holds you tight, resting his chin on your head.

“I’m glad I’m back,” you tell him. It’s the closest to I missed you that you can force out.

When did you get so skittish? You don’t like it, but you can’t seem to stop.

“I’m glad you’re back too,” he says. He pulls away from the hug enough to look at your face. “Have you eaten? Can I take you out somewhere?”

You smile shyly. You like that he wants to take you out, like that he wants to treat you, like that he wants to spend the time with you. “I haven’t eaten,” you tell him.

“I know a cool place,” he tells you. “It’s got a lot of craft beers on tap and a big fireplace. The food’s good too. I thought maybe we could go chill there - eat, have a beer?”

“That honestly sounds amazing,” you admit. You change out of the hoodie you wore for the drive into a much cuter sweater and brush your hair and then follow Taehyung down to his car.

The drive isn’t long, and you drive in comfortable silence, music playing quietly. Taehyung hums and taps his fingers against the steering wheel. You try to stay present, to not get sucked into your thoughts.

It’s hard.

Taehyung’s right - the place is cool. The vibe is very relaxed, especially with the fire roaring in a big double-hearth fireplace. The stewardess seats you two at a high-top in the middle of the room and leaves you with menus.

“When we finish eating we can take our beers over there,” Taehyung suggests, nodding at the sunken area before the fireplace, which is furnished with plush chairs and little side-tables.

“I like that plan,” you tell him.

Forty minutes later, stomach full of good food and about half of your beer, you find yourself exactly there, relaxing into one of the chairs, your beer in hand. You feel warm, and happy, and far away from the chest-tightening doubt you’d had on the drive over. Being with Taehyung is easy, not work. How had you forgotten that in eight days?

“You have no idea how badly I want to ask Yoongi about that track,” Taehyung chuckles, taking a sip of his beer. “But he hasn’t put it on his Soundcloud, so I have to pretend I haven’t heard it. It’s killing me. I’m not good at keeping secrets, I have a big mouth.”

“Don’t make me regret trusting you,” you tease, and he winks at you.

“Have you talked to anyone about it? I’m curious what the other guys think.”

“You should always assume that if I know something, JImin knows it too,” he tells you with a guilty smile. “Sometimes I feel like even if I don’t tell him stuff he still manages to know anyway. It’s scary.”

This makes you think about Nina, how only two years ago the same might have been said for you. Now you don’t even feel like you have a best friend, and definitely not one on the same level as Taehyung and Jimin.

“Does that mean - does he know -?” You blush.

Taehyung lowers his voice respectfully. “That we slept together? Of course he does. Don’t tell me you didn’t tell your roommates.”

“No, I did,” you assure him. “It’s not a secret. I just… hadn’t thought about that.”

“Don’t worry,” he says, shooting you a sideways, flirtatious grin. “I left glowing reviews.”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling.

On your walk back to where the car is parked, Taehyung stops, looking skyward.

“What is it?” you ask him, backtracking to stand beside him. He wraps an arm over your shoulders, still looking up.

He doesn’t answer for a minute. Then, as if he’s remembering you’re there, he smiles down at you. “I was looking for Cassiopeia,” he says, and points. “My grandmother always said it was hers - I still don’t know what she meant by that; she died before I was old enough to want to ask. But it’s kind of a habit for me to look for it in the winter.”

You’re quiet, leaning against him, eyes tracing the W of stars he’d pointed to. You like finding constellations too, but for your own fun.

“That’s kind of sweet,” you point out.

“Yeah, don’t tell anyone,” he says with a sardonic chuckle. You turn towards him and he wraps his second arm around you, warming you immediately.

You’re expecting it when he bends to kiss you, your mouths meeting greedily, your hands slipping inside his unzipped jacket to grip at his sides. You’ve been waiting to kiss him since you parked your car outside Jin’s house, hours ago. He moves his mouth to your jaw, works down to your neck, then back up to your jaw again.

“Y/N,” he murmurs in your ear, one of his hands pressing tight against the middle of your back, “I don’t want to fuck this up, but I have to tell you. I want to be with you. I want you to be mine - really mine, only mine.”

Your stomach drops. You move your hands, slowly so as not to spook him, to his chest and apply pressure. He gets the hint and releases you, backing up enough that he can look you in your face.

“Taehyung,” you say, your voice heavy with genuine regret, and you actually watch as the hurt flies across his face before he manages stoicism. “I’m sorry,” you tell him, and you mean it so much. “I don’t - it isn’t - I like you. I like you a scary amount, honestly. But I don’t want to be in a relationship. I don’t want to be someone’s girlfriend. I don’t want my life to start revolving around a guy who will just -.”

You shut up, fast.

“Just what?” he challenges, eyes glinting.

Just get bored of you… just find someone prettier or smarter or more charming or more interesting… just lose interest once he gets what he wants. The words are dancing on the tip of your tongue.

“I don’t want to lose you,” you say instead. “I don’t want to mess with this.”

“A guy who will just,” he repeats slowly, “what?”

You swallow hard, hands going clammy. He’s going to make you say it. He stares at you evenly, unyielding, like he’ll wait all night if he has to. You swallow again. You feel like you have a rock lodged in your throat.

You expect him to be upset - you’d seen the look on his face. He might even be angry. He might break the whole thing off and drive you home in silence.

Maybe it’s over.

Maybe you’ve ruined it.

Taehyung wraps his arms back around you and pulls tight, pressing his lips to the top of your head.

“I will never,” he says, and there’s something raw in his voice that you’ve never heard there before. “There’s a lot of things I can’t promise you, but I promise I will never hurt you the way you were hurt before.”

“You can’t promise that,” you say, and your voice breaks. You hate that you’re crying in front of him. You hate it. “You can’t promise me that your feelings won’t change one day. No one can promise that.”

He takes you by the shoulders and moves you so he can see your face, then uses a thumb to brush away the tears that have stalled out on your cheeks.

That makes you laugh, once, through your tears. But still. Nobody plans to fall out of love; it can’t be controlled any more than falling in love. You start to say so, but Taehyung rubs the pads of his thumbs across your cheeks again and whispers, “Don’t cry,” so you swallow the words.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him, wiping your own face with a sleeve roughly. You take a few deep breaths, trying to get it together. “I don’t usually fall apart like this.”

He watches you carefully, as if assessing if you’re really okay or not. “We don’t have to put a name to it if it scares you that bad,” he says finally, and you’re not sure if you’re imagining the disappointment in his voice or not. “But for the record… that’s what I want. When you’re ready.”

When you’re ready. Like it’s just a matter of time.

Thank you so much for being here! I appreciate every single like, reply, dm, ask, or reblog!

Special thank you to Pauli for blessing me with her friendship and also for beta-ing.

#taehyung x reader #taehyung fic #taehyung fanfic #s2l #taehyung angst #darling jo tag

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