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It is a Friday evening, sky darkening in degrees, when Jeongguk finds himself doubting everything for no reason at all.
He tenses up, in the passenger seat of Taehyung’s car. Suddenly, everything feels a little different, an inch out of line, a degree more tilted off the cliff he seems to live on.
Nothing happened, but everything feels strange. The road too full, seat belt too tight over his chest, the sounds of traffic around them too crushingly sharp and gratingly loud, even when flooded over by the music from their speakers. Jeongguk swallows. Tries to remember which way is up, front, forward and not back.
“Tae?” Jeongguk says, twisting his hands in his lap. He tries his best to keep his voice casual, hide his worries in the bottom of his throat, hoping it could be just enough to work. “Is this really a good idea?”
Taehyung glances over at him, brief but probing. Jeongguk doesn’t quite meet his eye.
“Is something wrong?” Taehyung replies. He sounds concerned, and Jeongguk remembers too late that Taehyung is perceptive, and himself a terrible actor.
Jeongguk shrugs. “I don’t know. I want to see everyone, but - I don’t know.” He pauses, twists his hands again. “They’re not lucky like you.”
Taehyung glances over, briefly. “Baby, it’ll be fine. What can happen in a karaoke room?” He pauses. “But if you’re not ready, we can always go home.”
(His tone is kept casually light, but tender. So, so tender, like Taehyung seems to have constantly been in the two weeks since they met again. Two weeks of feeling their ways back to warm familiar patterns and colder time-changed ones, to find themselves and each other, once more. Changed but unchanged under the year’s worth of dust and scabs and shadows. Jeongguk still feels like he is dreaming, sometimes, in the early afternoons when he wakes to see Taehyung folded around him in the blankets, fingers tangled with his own, so breath-snatchingly time-stoppingly beautiful he looks unreal.)
Jeongguk pauses. Fights the urge to bite down on his lip - a habit he’s been trying to unlearn, after seeing the look on Taehyung’s face when he first saw the blood on Jeongguk’s mouth - and fails. Takes a breath and looks out the window. He does miss everyone, there’s no denying it. But Jeongguk is still afraid. That, too, is a habit he has to unlearn.
He twists at the ring on his third finger, silver and gold smooth under his touch. The metal is skin-warmed beneath his fingertips, and Jeongguk lets out a breath.
“No, you’re right,” he says, finally. The unease is gradually fading, or at least he thinks so. He smiles back at Taehyung, more honestly than he thought he could. “I mean, I kind of do miss everyone.”
Taehyung smiles at that. “Just kind of?”
“Fine,” replies Jeongguk. He laughs, a bit, and relaxes his hands in his lap. “I dreadfully miss seeing Yoongi and Jimin bitch at me in all four feet of their combined real-life persons. Not sure about Hoseok, though. He’s noisy even on Skype.”
“Four feet?” Taehyung shakes his head. “You give Jimin too much credit. And watch what you say about Hobi. Bros before hoes, Gukkie. Bros before hoes.”
“Hoes?” Jeongguk retorts, in mock offence. “Excuse you, Kim Taehyung, you proposed to me.”
Taehyung grins at that, in the almost-shy giggling close-mouthed way he does sometimes; the way that never fails to send warmth blooming up Jeongguk’s chest. He’s missed it, so damn much.
“Touché,” Taehyung admits. “But Hobi and I are facebook married, so who’s the real deal here?”
“Fuck you, Tae. You’re no fair,” Jeongguk replies. “I don’t even have Facebook.”
“Seriously, though,” says Taehyung, suddenly, as he stops the car for a red light. Bringing his left hand off the steering wheel, he reaches over to wrap his fingers over Jeongguk’s clasped hands, rubbing his thumb warm into the grooves of Jeongguk’s knuckles. “If you don’t feel up to it, we can go home. No one will blame you. We can watch Ponyo or something.”
And for a moment, Jeongguk almost considers it. But he’s already backed out on the first four times his friends insisted on them meeting again in person - thrice because he was afraid, once because he broke a glass plate, and was too busy having a meltdown in the kitchen to remember to get dressed (he still feels sorry, that Taehyung had to find him like that, a shaking mess on the floor, hands bloodied and face wet and choking on the past) - and he is not lying when he says he misses them. After a full year of making a ghost of himself, typed messages and video calls are just not quite enough; even if the alternative is what he once swore never to do again.
Besides, they picked an auspicious date, and a safe place, and Jeongguk is with Taehyung, and Taehyung is his luck.
So he only shakes his head, and focuses on feeling the warmth of Taehyung’s hand seeping into his own. Reminds himself that this is right, it has to be. Taehyung is always right when it counts the most.
“No, I’m fine,” Jeongguk says. “Really. Let’s go see our losers.”
Taehyung squeezes Jeongguk’s hands, twice. Firm and warm and reassuringly with him. “Okay then, lemango. I hope they have good songs.”
And Jeongguk laughs, because Taehyung’s pet names don’t make sense. And then Taehyung laughs, because Jeongguk is laughing. And the traffic light turns orange turns green and Taehyung pulls his hand reluctantly away, and they drive on, again.
-
When they step into the karaoke place - an unpopular one, too old and out of the way for most, just like Jeongguk needs it - it takes all of twenty-six seconds for something stupid to go wrong.
Taehyung is talking to the girl at the front desk, asking for the room Yoongi reserved and is probably waiting in, and she is checking something on some kind of monitor. And Jeongguk is hanging a little behind, carefully away from the counter, trying to not to think about how many people there are in the place. Or all the things that could go deathly wrong, from ceilings collapsing to necks snapping down on the stairs. Tries to push aside the thoughts from the him of two-weeks-ago, the one he tried to leave behind in the other town. Dig his heels firm into the present lest he unravels into the past.
He is nearly succeeding, to his own surprise. It is always easier to surprise himself when Taehyung is around. Jeongguk concentrates on the music playing, and breathes. Wonders if the bass is going to drop.
And as if on cue the song stops sharp altogether, slicing off the end of a beat as the speakers go dead silent. Along with every light, air-conditioner and - probably - karaoke machine in the building, plunging the space into the sort-of-darkness of a late evening city. Not for the first time, but always a shock when it happens.
“Fuck,” says Jeongguk, as the familiar feeling pools cold in his calves and snakes sharp up his spine, not intensely but still there. And already Taehyung has turned away from the desk, closed the distance between them, hands sliding to clasp warm around Jeongguk’s elbows.
“Baby-” Taehyung starts, concern palpable.
“I’m-” Jeongguk tries to say, tries to gather enough breath to assure Taehyung that this time he is okay, really actually okay, for once. That he is no stranger to power outages, he causes them all the damn time and it’s not nearly enough to set off a flashback when he is feeling as okay as he was.
But he never finishes his sentence, because a sudden popping sound comes from the right. And then there is an explosion activity as three shapes materialise at the other end of the room in a burst of conversation and off-balance limbs, and Jeongguk can make out no more before he is blinded by two phone flashlights, sweeping about the room.
“-The lights went off-” comes a voice.
“Is he here?”
“Could it b e -”
“Jeon Jeongguk!”
And then the lights fix on him, for a moment, before the glare shifts suddenly out of his eyes as the phone-holders are shoved aside, and Jeongguk blinks back his vision just in time to see Yoongi marching fast towards him, tailed by Jimin and Hoseok.
He has a split-second to lose his breath over how different-but-the-same they are, how strange it is to see them out of a phone screen - Jimin looks taller than he remembered, and Hoseok shorter, and Yoongi still walks in the same way he did as a teenager, the way Jeongguk once looked up to and tried to copy before he realised that was stupid - before they have reached him. And all of a sudden pale hands are fisted in the front of Jeongguk’s shirt and pulling rough at the fabric.
“Jeon Jeongguk,” Yoongi spits, the first words delivered face-to-face since a full lifetime ago. “You fucking sack of shit, the fuck did you think you were doing, huh?”
And then Jimin is tugging at Yoongi’s hands, and Taehyung is laughing into Jeongguk’s shoulder, and Hoseok is barrelling into Jeongguk from the side saying you’ve gotten so skinny. And everyone is talking at the same time, pressing into the same space, filling up the same air. And the receptionist girl is probably staring at the mess they are, but Jeongguk is too explosively overwhelmed, in a good way, to care.
(The lights come back on just as Jeongguk starts grossly sobbing, and he nearly curses the timing. Except that, in the moment, he feels anything but unlucky.)
-
Jeongguk begins to feel unlucky, three hours later, when Taehyung - now drunk out of his mind with one wild Jung Hoseok, neither seeming to mind being the only ones getting wasted - picks the same song to sing for the honest-to-god eighth time.
“Fucking hell, Tae,” groans Jeongguk, as the beat kicks in, again. In the exact same way it did the first fucking seven times. “Not again.”
Taehyung sticks out his tongue and then laughs into the microphone. “Eric Nam is a musical genius. Live with it, mochi pancake.”
Jeongguk swears, and laughs, and passes the other microphone to an eager Hoseok, stepping back and away from the machine screen. The first verse kicks in and Jeongguk sits back down, sliding to the far corner of the lounge, away from the others, on reflex. He smiles, watching. Sinks down against the cushions and watches Taehyung sway on his feet in the middle of the room, hitting every note but butchering all the lyrics, Jimin caught under an arm as they fight for the microphone.
“Not joining him?” Yoongi asks, from the other end of the seat, voice just above the sound of Hoseok’s singing.
Jeongguk laughs. “I’ve had the mike since the second ‘Heaven’s door’. Pretty sick of Eric Nam by now.”
“Still,” remarks Yoongi, with a nod in Taehyung’s direction. “I figured you’d be glued together, after so long. He really missed you, you know.”
Shrugging, Jeongguk watches the curve of Taehyung’s shoulders, dipping and rising as he curls around the microphone, pulling it from Jimin, drunken strength somehow overpowering the sober. Yoongi is right, almost.
“I want to,” Jeongguk admits. “But I’m still bad luck, you know? If I’m going to unleash my clingy side, I’d rather save it for when Tae can actually remember.”
“Huh,” Yoongi says. Then grins, as Taehyung nearly drops the microphone trying to pass it from one hand to the other. “That makes sense. Fucking idiot is deadass wasted.”
Jeongguk smiles. It’s impossible not to, with Taehyung the way he is. “Yeah. He’s gonna have one hell of a hangover.”
Yoongi laughs. “And you’re not planning on drinking?”
“Sleeping pills,” Jeongguk explains. Then furrows his brow, turning to Yoongi. “And shouldn’t I be asking that? It’s weird to see you sober, when there are good drinks right there.”
Yoongi shrugs. “I promised Jimin I wouldn’t drink.”
Jeongguk frowns. “Why not?”
“Stuff happens, don’t sweat it.”
“Stuff?”
“Seriously,” says Yoongi. “It’s nothing.”
And Jeongguk wants to push harder, find out exactly what he means. But Taehyung’s voice pulls him suddenly to attention.
“Jeongguk?” He hears, from somewhere in the room, and Jeongguk whips back around. There is something in his tone that makes Jeongguk’s heart jump in his chest and clank hard against his ribs. He spots him, away from the screen now, microphone out of his hands.
“Jeongguk,” Taehyung is saying, again. “Where are you?”
Nearly knocking over a stray glass, Jeongguk pushes to his feet and hurries to Taehyung. Reaches out and catches his sleeve, tugging lightly as he steps into his line of vision.
“Hey, Tae,” Jeongguk tries to smile. “I’m here.”
“Where’d you go?” Taehyung slurs, blinking at him as if he doesn’t know if he trusts what he is seeing. He lifts a hand, wraps stiff fingers around Jeongguk’s elbow. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere.” Jeongguk says, as gently as he can manage. “I was just there, watching you.”
And Taehyung stumbles forward, a tight look passing over his features. He buries his face in Jeongguk’s neck, fumbling hands clutching too-tight around his waist. “Don’t go anywhere, Gukkie. You can’t go anywhere.” And the excitement in his voice is gone, replaced by something heavier, something wetter, something Jeongguk does not want to hear. Does not ever want to hear. “I miss you, you know? I missed you so much. I thought you were gone.”
And Jeongguk’s heart is breaking, every part of it all at once, because he knows Taehyung isn’t talking about the group gathering anymore. That his words stretch far further than the karaoke room, to a place back in time too low for the atmosphere, too cold for Taehyung’s tongue. He feels Yoongi’s eyes on him, concerned. He swallows.
Gently, Jeongguk wraps an arm around Taehyung’s back, palm curling firm around his waist. He guides them back to the seat, in the corner. Away from the centre of attention or so he hopes. At the other end of the room Yoongi glances at him, then at Taehyung, then stands up. He reaches under the table and pulls out the last bottle of wine - the small one, the three-year Merlot he’d brought but never opened, the one he said he was saving - and pops it open with a shout. And Hoseok is tipsy and giggling, cheering and gravitating towards the sound, grabbing Jimin around the neck, both microphones still in their hands.
Jeongguk catches Yoongi’s eye and mouths a thank you for the distraction, as he settles Taehyung against him in the seat, every touch light and brief and careful.
“Hey,” Jeongguk says, softly, slipping a hand into Taehyung’s hair, cradling his head onto his own shoulder. Taehyung’s arms are still around him, wrapped tight around his waist like they are afraid to let go. It isn’t painful, but it hurts. “Tae, babe. I won’t go anywhere, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here. Promise.”
“Good,” mutters Taehyung, fingers tightening into the fabric of Jeongguk’s shirt, face pressing into his shoulder. “Don’t go. Don’t ever go. Don’t go, Jeongguk. Never again.”
“I won’t. I’m right here.” Jeongguk shifts his head so his lips are against Taehyung’s hair, moving with his words. A not-quite-kiss, but it is the most he can bring himself to manage.
“Don’t go,” says Taehyung again, and there is a note of firm desperation in his voice that makes Jeongguk want to scream, or cry, or break himself. “It hurt, you know? A lot, sometimes. In the hospital. It was scary, and it hurt, and you weren’t there. You weren’t there. I wanted you to be there. Where were you?”
And Jeongguk freezes, like he’s been slapped, every bit of his body tensing. Because he never realised. He’d never thought, all those times, about what it would be like for Taehyung, hurt in the hospital, and Taehyung never brought it up, and-
Jeongguk feels like the worst person in the world, as he rubs the hand in Taehyung’s hair down his neck, curves it over his shoulders.
“I’m sorry, babe,” he says. “I’m so sorry. I’m here now.”
“You weren’t there,” insists Taehyung, and Jeongguk realises he may be too drunk to really hear him. “I was scared, and it hurt, and no one could find you, and I wanted to find you but I was stuck in the goddamn fucking hospital. I hate the hospital. I hate it. It’s so cold, and weird, and it hurts.” A breath. “And you weren’t there. You weren’t there.”
“Tae,” says Jeongguk. He wants to cry, so bad. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I’m here now. Babe, I’m here now.”
Taehyung shakes his head into his shoulder, and lets out a soft hiccuping sob, and Jeongguk feels his heart snap sharp in two. “Why weren’t you there? Why’d you leave? Why do you always leave? It’s not fair. You’re always the one leaving.” Taehyung gasps, a small wet sound, and Jeongguk pulls his arm tighter around him. “I hated you, you know? For being gone, and not saying anything. Or I wanted to hate you, I really did. But I can’t. It’s too hard. I can’t hate you. I missed you, so so much. And it hurt.”
And Jeongguk can feel himself shaking, and realises he’s crying, a little, now, too, even though he doesn’t know when it started. He blinks through the tears, tries to still his breathing. Tries not to let the guilt crush him from inside out as he brings his grip to tighten on Taehyung’s waist and tugs him to stand up.
“Hey, Yoongi,” Jeongguk says, voice cracking against his will. “We’ll head back first, okay?”
“Sure,” Yoongi says. He sounds concerned, but Jeongguk does not turn to see his face.
Then, Jimin’s voice. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” forces out Jeongguk. “I can drive us back. Really. I’d tell you if I needed it. And Tae-” he swallows “-Tae should be fine, too.”
He can almost feel Jimin frowning into the back of his neck. He thinks he hears Yoongi say something, softly.
“Okay,” comes Jimin’s voice again, after a while. “But talk to him about it, okay? When he’s sober.”
Jeongguk freezes. Takes a moment to calm his heartbeat. Then nods.
He holds Taehyung against him, so he doesn’t fall down, and pulls them both out of the room. Lets go of the door handle, behind them, giving it a light push backwards. And the sounds - the wordless music, the slurred speech, the ghost of laughter - disappear as the door swings back shut.
-
When Taehyung wakes up, his head is full of nails, and acid, and probably sharks.
He groans, faintly. Peels back his eyelids a crack, before immediately regretting as he discovers that the sunlight is way too fucking bright, at least three hundred thousand times too bright, and it’s aggravating the damn sharks. Fuck hangovers.
Shutting his eyes again, he groans and presses his face into the warm mass beside him.
The warm mass laughs, a little, and Taehyung remembers then that it’s Jeongguk. He feels fingers on his head, rubbing at the temples, then on his neck, kneading through knots he hadn’t noticed were there. Taehyung relaxes under the touch, or at least as much as anyone could with their head still feeling like the aftermath of a nuclear-powered worldwide gang fight. With sharks.
“Morning, Tae,” says Jeongguk.
“Morning,” Taehyung mumbles back. “Can you close the curtain?”
“Okay,” comes the reply. Jeongguk starts shifting away to comply, and Taehyung immediately regrets his decision, as the loss of contact slaps him cold in the face. He reaches up a hand and grabs hold of Jeongguk’s whatever-bunch-of-fabric-he-just-touched.
“Actually, forget that,” he mutters. “Don’t move.”
Jeonguk laughs again, but does as Taehyung says - strangely cooperative. Not that Taehyung would want to complain, as warm fingers return to his neck, now rubbing down the vertebrae and into his shoulders. Taehyung sighs, and leans into Jeongguk’s side, again, snaking an arm around Jeongguk’s waist - not bothering to dodge the buttons of what is probably Jeongguk’s laptop - to feel his stomach under his palm, warm and familiar but still-too-skinny. He’s missed this.
(Taehyung’s head still hurts, but everything feels almost better now.)
“What time is it?” Taehyung says.
“Twelve thirty,” Jeongguk replies, voice soft. He sounds a little more tired than usual, but Taehyung is too hungover to put any thought into it, not just yet.
Taehyung whines, vaguely. Burrows a little closer into Jeongguk’s side. “Too early.”
“Then go back to sleep,” replies Jeongguk, sliding his hand back to Taehyung’s hair, kneading at his temples.
Taehyung considers this, and decides he will. Soon. “Have you eaten?”
Jeongguk freezes. “Uh.”
Taehyung pinches Jeongguk’s waist, earning a yelp (the sound spikes jarringly sharp in his head, like a lance crossed with a bazooka, but Taehyung admits he was asking for it).
“Go eat, idiot,” he instructs. “I’ll sleep more, until the sharks die.”
Jeongguk laughs, a little sheepishly, and squeezes Taehyung’s hand. “Okay. I’ll close the curtains.” Then a pause. “Sharks?”
“Yeah,” mumbles Taehyung, already slipping back into hungover drowsiness. He tries to enjoy every last bit of Jeongguk’s presence, while he can. So warm. “Fuck the sharks.”
Jeongguk laughs, and runs fingers through Taehyung’s hair. He keeps them there, for a while, a little longer than usual. “Okay. Good luck with that.”
And then Jeongguk gets up, easing his laptop and self out from under Taehyung’s arm. And Taehyung misses his warmth as soon as it’s gone, burrowing deeper into the pillows, a sorry excuse for replacement. And then there is the sound of Jeongguk’s footsteps, sock-muffled on the wood floor, and the clattering swish of curtains pulled shut, and the light dims behind Taehyung’s eyelids.
Silence, for a while.
Taehyung relaxes against the pillows and covers. His head feels better, somewhat, with the curtains closed and Jeongguk’s practiced massaging skills. Still like there are warheads pounding on the inside of his skull, and nails, but with calmer sharks now.
Just as Taehyung is close to dipping fully into sleep, Jeongguk’s voice floats out suddenly into the air, tone controlled but tentative - strangely taut-tentative, like the barest step on a frozen lake, before shifting weight onto the foot.
“Tae, do you remember what you said last night?”
“No,” says Taehyung, sluggish. “Did something happen?”
Jeongguk pauses. “No. I mean, yeah. But it’s okay.”
Taehyung frowns, a little. He tries to think. There’s something in the weight of Jeongguk’s tone, the lowered slope of his shoulders, the way he looks at him but not quite at him. Something not good. Something nearly sad, but not certain, almost like-
Taehyung’s eyes flick open.
“Fuck, Jeongguk.” He says, quickly. “Minjae is just a friend, oh my god. I swear. Don’t trust anything Hobi says while he’s drunk, he loses his brain after like three glasses-”
“What?” says Jeongguk. “Wait, who the fuck is Minjae?”
“Oh,” Taehyung says. “That’s not it?”
“No,” Jeongguk says. “But what the actual fuck. Who’s Minjae?”
“I just said he’s just a friend. We hung out, like, once, and Hobi got all weird about it. But anyway,” Taehyung frowns again, into the blankets, confused. “What actually happened?”
Silence.
“It’s nothing,” says Jeongguk, finally.
But then suddenly Taehyung cannot believe him, even if he tried. Because there is something just under his tone now, something in the way nothing slides off his tongue that sounds dangerously close to that voice. That one voice. The one Jeongguk uses when something is hurting, but he is too-stubborn enough to try and fail to hide it. The voice, the one liar voice, that Jeongguk uses in morning sometimes, when Taehyung finds him still awake at the far edge of the bed and Jeongguk tells him that he slept. And on that day when Taehyung caught him crying on the kitchen floor, shaking among glass shards and tile, and he insisted it was nothing. And when Jeongguk found Taehyung’s hand under the covers, one night, and tried to sound casual as he said Tae, hey, can you keep my pills for me?
It’s not the same voice, Taehyung is sure, but it is just close enough that he feels sharply awake, all of a sudden.
“Baby?” Taehyung says. “It can’t be nothing. What happened last night?”
Jeongguk steps back towards the bed, and brushes his hand through Taehyung’s hair. “Don’t worry about it. We can talk after you sleep.”
“No,” Taehyung insists. Firm, and more loudly, so Jeongguk knows he means it, hangover be damned. “What happened? Did I do something? Are you okay?”
Jeongguk gets a strange look on his face, then, eyebrows creasing in. He bites at his lip, and Taehyung frowns because the action is hard, and Jeongguk really has to stop doing that before he hurts himself again.
He nearly opens his mouth to say as much, when Jeongguk gives in.
The mattress sinks under Jeongguk’s weight as he sits back down on the edge of the bed, just a bit too far from Taehyung’s reach. He doesn’t look at Taehyung, and Taehyung can barely make out the expression on his face, with his head still spinning and the curtains now shut.
“Uh,” Jeongguk starts. Then stops. Taehyung shifts over, closer, enough to slide his hand over Jeongguk’s, fitting the grooves of their fingers together like a puzzle.
“Yeah?” Taehyung says.
“Tae,” His voice comes out soft. “I would never want to leave you, if I could choose. You know that, right?”
Taehyung blinks.
“What?” He says. “Jeongguk, am I too hungover or are you not making sense? You’re not going somewhere, are you?”
Jeongguk shifts closer now, and meets Taehyung’s gaze. “No, I’m not. I just mean what I said. I,” he stops. Seems to think for a bit, before continuing, more softly this time. “I’m really sorry, Tae. For leaving you alone. After the- you know, after everything.”
“Oh,” Taehyung says.
“It’s just- last night, you were talking about it, you know?” Jeongguk continues. He slides his hand out from under Taehyung’s to tangle their fingers instead. “And you never brought it up, and I was too fucking stupid to think to ask. But it must have been really hard for you, after I left like that. I’m sorry.”
Taehyung sighs, a little. “Idiot, you damn idiot. I’m fine. Yeah, I didn’t like that, at all, but I’m fine now. I have you back.” He pauses, and squeezes Jeongguk’s hand. “Besides, I still had everyone else, you know? Yoongi and Hobi and Jimin. But you- god, I have no idea how you managed it, baby. A whole year on your own, after something like that. Fuck, I-”
“No,” Jeongguk interrupts. “Enough about me. I’m talking about you. I know it was hard for you, too. You said as much last night, and I don’t blame you, at all. I would never. I’m sorry. Babe, I’m so sorry. I-”
“Jeongguk,” Taehyung scolds. “Don’t apolog-”
But his words are cut off as Jeongguk finishes his sentence,
“-I won’t do it again, okay?”
Taehyung’s eyes widen, just a fraction. “Do what?”
“I won’t leave you like that, again. Not ever.” He slides down onto the mattress, until he is lying beside Taehyung with their faces level, and Taehyung can look straight into his eyes. “I’ll stay, forever. I promise.”
“Oh,” Taehyung mumbles. His ribs feel loose, suddenly, in the best way, in a way he doesn’t quite understand. Like something binding them shut suddenly unraveled, before he’d even found a name for it. Like suddenly he doesn’t have to worry all the time, over anything, anymore. Because he knows Jeongguk is telling the truth.
Taehyung smiles. “Good.”
Jeongguk pushes his fringe away his face, and leans in to press the lightest of kisses to his forehead. Light and fleeting, but not like it will disappear. “But in return, promise me something too. Promise that if anything - and I mean anything - upsets you, you won’t keep it to yourself. Got it, babe?
Taehyung chuckles. “Did you practice saying that?”
Jeongguk blushes, violently. “Uh”
“Well,” Taehyung says, smiling broad and drowsy, more at ease than he’s felt in years. “It worked. I promise, and I love you.”
“Oh, great. Nice. Um, that’s-” Jeongguk falls quiet, like he suddenly doesn’t know what to say, and Taehyung laughs again because this is the tongue-tied Jeon Jeongguk he knows and loves. He lets go of Jeongguk’s hand to reach up and cups at Jeongguk’s face, thumb brushing firm over his cheek.
“Can I kiss you?”
A pause. Then, a smile. “Yeah.”
And Jeongguk leans in close, carefully as always, and Taehyung pushes forward as much as he can without getting queasy from the movement, to pecks him on the lips, chaste and too-brief but with feeling, so much feeling. “I love you. Always. And I’m okay. So stop worrying about last night, yeah? Go eat lunch and let me fight the damn sharks in my brain.”
“Okay,” Jeongguk laughs, light and full, and Taehyung’s smile stretches wider because it is his favorite sound in the world.
And then Jeongguk stands up, again, to slip out the room. And there is a brief flood of piercingly bright light before Jeongguk can tug the door shut behind him. But then he does, and the glare is gone as quick as it came. And Taehyung feels relaxed, for once, for the first time in too long. Watching the back of the closed door, and knowing he will always be welcome to pull it back open.