Work Text
moodboard: notsunnywow
Boseong
June, 1992
Taehyung is melting. The sweat is making his thin summer t-shirt stick to his back, and his sandy-blonde hair is blowing back out of his face, curling in a wave behind him. His borrowed Ray Bans just manage to stay on as he cycles down the country roads that wind through the green tea fields of Boseong. It’s a far cry from Chungmoro, Seoul where he should be hanging out with Hoseok, sipping taro boba or shopping for manhwa, spending the collective pittance from their part time jobs in the arcade. Most of his savings should have been blown by now on beating Hoseok’s record on Sunset Riders or killing it on Space Invaders. Summers are supposed to be for traipsing around the city, muggy and masked up to fight off the air pollution; for Noreabang and drinking too much, stretching out on Hoseok’s twin bed in their socked feet, and for wasting days doing not very much at all, but doing it together. Instead, Taehyung is stranded in the depths of South Jeolla Province, surrounded by greenery and clean air, sloping hills and idyllic countryside. It’s a four hour drive from his parent’s house in Seoul, but it might as well be another planet. Another century. For someone else, it might be a vacation from the smog of the city, quite literally a breath of fresh air, but all Taehyung can feel is an oppressive heat on his chest. There’s too much silence in Boseong, even with the roar of the wind in his ears as he pedals faster and faster, zipping through the zig zag valleys like a panther running from a natural disaster. He’s been here three days, but it's his first time venturing out on his own. He’d borrowed his mother’s bike from when she was a teenager, a rusted old Flandria racer that might have been red when it was bought some time in the mid-70s, but is now a sun-faded shade of soda pop pink. He’d spent the morning patching up the tyres and oiling the chains, and it was moving pretty gracefully now considering its age.Nana Yoon’s house is almost five miles from the village, and really that wouldn’t be too much of a distance if the temperatures weren’t soaring into the mid-thirties with not a cloud in the sky. He has to pull his sunglasses off every couple of hundred meters to wipe the sweat out of his eyes, and he’s pretty sure his white shirt is turning translucent at this point. Luckily, there’s no one to impress in Boseong, with only eight thousand inhabitants spread across the county, most of them well over 60. It’s a place to retire to, to settle down without anyone to bother you. Not somewhere that a 21 year old guy wants to spend his summer. The town itself is quaint. He’d driven through it with his dad when he’d been dropped off on Saturday, his face determinedly fixed on the window to avoid his dads gaze, but not really taking in much at all. He cycles up to the convenience store first, and chains up his bike outside. It doesn’t really seem like the kind of town where anyone is going to steal anything without at least one nosey witness who knows everyone, but old habits die hard. The door dings when he enters, and he quickly realizes that it’s not a convenience store at all. Well, not really . It’s more of a whatever-the-hell-you-need store, with one side dedicated to books and records. The other side of the shop stocked with non-perishable foods, cans and packets, large wicker baskets of fruit and vegetables, and even some hardware. The shop smells incredible though, with a permeating aroma of white tea just sitting in the air like it lives there, always. There’s a tiny man perched at the big wooden desk directly across from the door, and despite the ding of the bell, he’s buried in a book. Definitely an alpha though, so not the bringer of the white tea. People don’t seem to wear scent blockers here, Taehyung thinks, wiping his sweaty hands on his jeans and wandering over to the books first.“You break the spine, you buy it, kid,” the alpha at the desk says, without looking up. Taehyung takes him in from the side of his eye. He looks to be in his late 30s maybe, with longish, raven hair tucked into a little beanie. He’s practically swallowed in the huge bomber he’s wearing, and his narrowed cat eyes are following his words from left to right, left to right, left to right. He reminds Taehuyng of one of those cat clocks that hangs on the wall - eyes moving from side to side with every tick, and a tail swinging across the paintwork. Hoseok’s parents have one of those clocks. He just grunts in response to the alpha, and runs a finger along the selection of books. There are only two bookcases, flush together, and still the collection is eclectic. It’s organised alphabetically, not by genre, so his index finger traverses Franz Kafka, Barbara Kingsolver, Helen Keller in a single brush. After a few minutes, he pulls out The Witching Hour by Anne Rice because the name calls to him. He tucks it under his elbow and wanders to the records. Nana Yoon has an old Roadstar 7-in-1 that looks like it fell right out of the Double R Diner from Twin Peaks. The records seem to be more fastidiously organised than the books - Golden Age Hip Hop (Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim), Post-Punk (Wire, Bauhaus, The Fall) and a dozen other crate boxes with sticker labels fill a huge desk in the shop’s window. “What do you like to listen to?” The alpha, who not only looks like a cat but moves as silently as one, says from behind Taehyung’s shoulder.“Um…” Taehyung frowns, not really in the mood to talk to anyone today, but small towns. “I like RM, do you know him?” He taps the walkman at his waist.“I’ve been listening to Indigo a lot.”The alpha hums. “Right, so sad boy grunge? You might like this one,” He reaches past Taehyung and into one of the wooden boxes on the table.“Slanted and Enchanted.” He hands the Pavement record to Taehyung. “I’m Yoongi, I own this place with my partner. I’m guessing that you belong to Nana Yoon?”Taehyung nods, and he supposes this is going to be how it is. Everyone knowing his business, everyone talking to him. He already misses the anonymity of Seoul, where he can walk all day from neighbourhood to neighbourhood without seeing anyone he knows. Without even getting a second look really, unless he walks by a group of school-omegas because while he isn’t an arrogant guy, he knows he’s attractive. “I don’t really belong to anyone, but yes.” He follows Yoongi to the desk, and places the record and book in front of him. “Can I have a call card for the payphone as well.”Yoongi raises an eyebrow, and pulls out a shiny biscuit tin. He rifles through a pile of call cards, but doesn’t give Taehyung a choice - just pushes a 10 minute Betty Boop card across the desk to him.“Thanks, I guess,” he grumbles, pocketing it while Yoongi tots up his other purchases. The alpha peels the price stickers off his book and record, and thumbs the totals into his cash register. The keys are sticky and they make a typewriter sound that gets on Taehyung’s nerves.“You know, usually when people offer their name the polite thing is to offer one back?” Taehyung just pouts. “I mean sure, but that’s a dumb practice, isn’t it? You offered yours because you wanted to, for some reason. I didn’t because I don’t.”He catches himself, realizing that it's probably not the best idea he’s ever had to start off on such a bad foot. He’s not an asshole, he’s just frustrated at being here. He gives Yoongi a half smile, somewhat apologetic.“Don’t worry, I’m well used to teen angst. We have enough of that upstairs.” Yoongi throws his eyes to the ceiling, and Taehyung isn’t sure if he’s talking upstairs in the proverbial sense, or if his family lives literally upstairs. He looks too young to have a teenager, but stranger things have happened.“It’s Taehyung,” he sighs, tucking the brown paper bag under his arm and pouting a little. “But I’m not a teenager. I’m 21 years old. A whole ass adult, in fact.”“Oh teen angst knows no actual age,” Yoongi laughs, and cocks his head to the side. Taehyung just nods, and makes his way to the door. He takes a little sniff, and turns around, a little awkwardly.“The white tea… is it your mate?” Yoongi raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t look angry. “Keep walking, Romeo. Come back to me when you realize how much that book sucks.”Taehyung is unlocking his bike outside when he pulls back and knocks into someone. He turns around just in time to see a bundle of soft black, oversized clothes go tumbling down into the heap on the gravel. The pile of clothes makes a small little harumph.“Are you okay?” Taehyung asks, as the pile of sweatshirt and baggy pants grumbles and twitches. A little dark head looks up and smiles up at him. He feels his heart clutch in his chest at the sweet face lying there in the dirt - a mess of onyx curls, soft pink cheeks, and the roundest eyes he’s ever seen in his life. It’s like he’s looking down on a baby bat that’s struggling with his wings. He reaches out a hand, and the boy takes it, but doesn’t say anything. Taehyung feels so self conscious now of the heat in his body. As an alpha, he runs hotter anyway, but the sun and the ride through the green tea fields had left him sweaty and salty with the sun. He feels the boy’s soft hand slip on his own as he tries to pull him up, and he wants to fade away into the wind with embarrassment.When the boy is on his feet, he just smiles at Taehyung again, like the world isn’t an awful place, like he just walks around like that. Happy all of the time, content. It makes Taehyung feel sad, and he has to look away for a beat.When he looks up, the boy just taps his chin and looks at Taehyung expectantly.“I’m sorry,” he whispers, flushing when he realises that the smell of white tea is stronger out here, and it's definitely coming from the beautiful omega in front of him. “For knocking you over.”The omega just smiles again, shrugs, and turns back towards the shop, leaving Taehyung standing like an idiot.He wheels his bike past a bunch of small houses, a seafood restaurant and a community center. There’s not much more to the town, really, just a handful of ancient businesses and people in trade - Doctors, Dentists, Fire Station, a primary school on the corner, some old guy selling cigarettes that grins toothlessly at Taehyung when he passes. He pulls his headphones back on.The pay phone booth is beside the low stone wall of the school, and he sits for a bit and lights a smoke. A shitty habit that he doesn’t even enjoy, but now doesn’t feel like the time to quit. There’s something extra gross about smoking when it's so hot outside. It makes him feel dirtier, but he needs something to keep him afloat.The phone booth is full of groceries, which is strange. He steps around them, and slots his Betty Boop card in, punching in the familiar numbers he could recite forwards and backwards without even thinking. “Hi, this is the answering machine of Jung Hoseok. Because I have an answering machine now.” Hoseok giggles in the background, and Taehyung can’t help but laugh along. He was there when Hoseok recorded the message. They’d smoked a spliff, watched four episodes of The Golden Girls, and recorded over ten messages before Hoseok had been satisfied. He was the only person they knew that even had one. It seemed like such an American thing to own, which was almost definitely why Hoseok had asked for it from his parents as a birthday present. “Pick up for once, you fucker,” Taehyung laughs after the beep. “I have ten minutes on this card and I don’t want to waste it talking to a robot. I’ll call you tomorrow at the same time, but just so you know, this place sucks. Taehyung out, from the back ass of nowhere.”He hangs the phone back up on the retainer, and steps back over the groceries. They’re tied up in plastic bags, with a receipt stapled to the handles. Like no one here needs to steal milk, eggs, washing up detergent, and four shiny tangerines.Fucking small towns.
“So, how did it go then?” Nana Yoon asks from over the rim of an enormous stew pot. He doesn’t know why she needs to cook en masse for two, but ever since he arrived, she’s been stuck in the kitchen, cooking every meal he ever liked as a child. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he mostly just eats takeout at home, or grabs a burger with Hobi. When he grabs a coke from the fridge, he runs his eyes along the Tupperware that is stacked in there, boxes lined up along the cold, condensated shelves like soldiers in formation.“Do we really need so much food, Nana?” he pops the can pulley open with a satisfying hiss. The first glug of coke immediately cools him down, the cold fizz cutting the back of this throat in that painful, pleasant way it does.“Well, shockingly the world doesn’t revolve around you, honey pie,” Nana Yoon laughs, stirring the stew and wiping her hands on the cloth tucked into her apron. “I’ve got batches in there for Grandma Moon next door, and Jungkookie will be over tomorrow to pick up the rest for Yoongi and Jimin.”Taehyung’s ears perk up and he sits down at the table. It’s huge, considering the size of the tiny living space, but Nana is a strangely social creature. There haven't been any visitors since he arrived, and he thinks she’s read his mood enough to give him a wide berth to settle in. He thinks he’d die if he had to make small talk with the neighbours, many of whom haven’t seen him since he was a kid.“Oh, from the shop?” he asks, swivelling the coke in his can, trying to keep his voice casual. “What's their deal?”Nana Yoon covers the steaming stew pot and sits down at the other end of the table. She pours herself a cup of tea from the teapot that always sits at the center of the table, always replenished, always warm. She drinks tea like it's her job, and despite the fact that he already has a cold drink, Taehyung reaches out and pours himself a cup. White tea with strawberries. “They don’t have a “deal”, they’re just good people.” Nana says, peering at him through her too-big glasses as they slide down her nose and perch there. “Yoongi has lived here all his life, but his mate Jimin just moved here a few years ago. Used to work at the hairdressers, but they run the shop together now. Why, did you call in?”Taehyung lifts the cup to his nose, closing his eyes softly as the steam trickles up to his face, wetting his cheeks and leaving a soft film of tea on his face, nearly invisible. It smells like the boy, and it doesn’t. The tea is too intense, too sweet with its fruity notes, too processed. In Boseong it's not hard to get good tea, and Nana Yoon always has the best. But the omega had smelled like tea straight from the bud. Like plucking it, however expertly handled, meant that the essence of the scent was lost.It’s on the nose, too, isn’t it? Coming from somewhere like Boseong where tea is the bread and butter. But riding through the winding hills, through the maze of green rows with his mouth open, had nothing on the smell of the boy. Or maybe they were meant to be together, the sweet, wide eyed omega and his green tea hills.“Oh, I see,” Nana chuckles, sipping her own tea. She sips it without even letting it cool, and Taehyung thinks that age and experience must have thickened her tongue. When he tries to sip his own, he burns his mouth so badly that he can’t even taste the strawberry.Taehyung doesn’t know what his Nana Yoon sees, but it doesn’t sound like something he wants to listen to.“I did. Call in to the shop. It’s… quaint.” He says it with a bitter look on his face, and Nana just laughs. “Looked like there was a guy around my age there. Does he live in the shop or what?”He picks at the oat biscuit Nana pushes in front of him on a small, olive green side plate. “That’s my Jungkookie,” Nana smiles like she’s talking about her own baby. His mom and his auntie, the chubby grandkids, Taehyung himself who she loves endlessly despite how much of a dick he’s been since he got here. “He didn’t say much,” Taehyung mutters, pulling off a chunk of cookie and dunking it into his tea. He watches the biscuit as it decomposes, little crumbs floating around in a whirlpool. He pulls it out just before it collapses into the tea entirely, tossing it into his mouth and letting the sweet oats melt on his tongue. “Well he can’t, can he?” Nana Yoon says, shuffling back over to the stove. The lid of the stew pot is bobbing around, clanking as though it just needs a lick more force to topple off entirely. “He doesn’t talk, honey. I hope you didn’t say anything about it. He’s such a sweetheart.”Taehyung just looks at her, long and hard, but doesn’t say anything.“He moved here with Jimin, but they’re not brothers.” Nana Yoon says, her eyes shining with the joys of gossip. Like anyone of her age who has the time on their hands to obsess over the comings and goings of everyone in her little town, she loves to gossip. There’s never any harm in it, though, because she’s sweet to the core. “The poor little baby was abandoned by his parents when he was a pup. Jimin took him in, and then later so did Yoongi.”Nana fills two bowls to the brim with Gogi sundubu-jjigae, and places one carefully in front of Taehyung. He’s not much in the mood to eat, never really is these days. His stomach has been tied in knots since he got here, and the lack of sleep isn’t helping. He knows that he’s already lost weight, needs to work out and eat regularly, but it's hard when he has no appetite. And yet, Nana’s jjigae, bubbling away in glossy shades of vermillion and tiger-orange, is tickling an urge that's buried in the depths of his stomach. Not quite hunger, but something. Something that makes Taehyung pick up the deep silver spoon, and swirl the perfect egg-yolk into the soup. The first sip on his tongue is fire-hot, but it’s nice to feel something. “How old is he?” he asks, scooping up some soft tofu and beef, blowing the steam from his bounty. Nana has always been an amazing cook. She’s always said that while the vegetables and produce themselves don’t contain anything particularly special, it's the love that’s poured in along the way that makes food truly healing. “Turned 19 this year,” Nana’s eyes are shrewd and delighted, like she can see the swirling thoughts inside Taehyung’s head with her bifocals. “Just presented last year, and oh isn’t he the sweetest little thing. Tall for an omega, mind, but I was the same at his age and so was your Mama.”“Is he deaf?” he asks Nana. Maybe that’s why she’s so fond of Jungkook. Nana has been hard of hearing for the last 15 years, and is an expert lip reader. She never learned to sign, saying she was too old which always made Taehyung feel upset. He'd learned a few basic signs back in the day. He has the strange urge to pull out his text books, and dig up his notes from that high-school class that he and Hoseok had taken together. He shivers a little when he remembers that they're all back on Seoul, with the rest of his life.“No, he’s hearing. He just doesn’t talk. Beautiful listener though, and he finds his own ways to get his point across, the stubborn little thing.” Nana smiles, sipping the last of her own soup.Taehyung cleans up both of their plates when they’re finished, covering the remains of the stew, and splashing some water and dish-soap into their bowls. While Nana potters out of the kitchen, tidying away her books and magazines and watering her many house plants, Taehyung watches as the blood red of the jjigae turns yellow at first, then disappears entirely down the sink.He thinks about Hoseok and the answering machine, and he thinks about his bedroom back in Seoul. When all of that makes his heart hurt too much, he thinks about white tea. Taehyung spends the next morning out in the yard. Nana lives, like most of the non-town dwelling inhabitants of Boseong, in the middle of back-ass nowhere. Her cottage is on an acre or so of land, and back when his Mama had been young and Grandpa had been alive, they’d farmed the land more to be self-sustaining than to make any kind of living. There had been sheep and goats well into Taehyung’s teens but these days, Nana focuses more on her vegetables. She’d sent him out that morning with a foraging basket, a small trailer of potting tools, and a big flask of juice with ice to keep him cool.“Mind you keep that sunhat on and cover your neck. You always burned so easily as a child.”Taehyung, even though he was too lazy to throw on anything more glamorous than some cutoff jeans and a flannel, much less shower, had always been attentive with his SPF. He’d waved her off and set off to her vegetable patch with his headphones on, and RM crooning into his ears.
I shot a million stars to let you know
So many trivial thoughts are on the floor
And now I hate the buildings I don't even know
Just wanna go back home (back home)
Is it pathetic fallacy or self-flagellation when the music you’re listening to seems to mirror everything you’re feeling? When it seems to creep into your chest and pull out all of the broken little pieces you’ve been too busy to glue back together, toss them around like bird food?Taehyung sighs, and enjoys the soft summer breeze on his skin. It’s the kind of breeze that Nana would say was an enemy in disguise. She likes to think that you’re more likely to burn when it's windy than when it's still. It never made any sense to Taehyung, and still he pulls his flannel over his bare shoulders, and fixes the wide brimmed sun hat so his neck is covered. Old habits.He’s just starting to harvest the perilla, plucking the large spade shaped leaves with his bare fingers, when he hears a small cough behind him. He turns around on his knees, wiping some sweat from his brow, and sees Jungkook standing behind him, a beautiful shadow in the glare of the hot summer sun.“Hi,” he says, scrambling to his feet and knocking the basket over. Lucky that the perilla leaves are hardy, because he just uses his foot to gather them all up in a pile beside the upended basket. “Um…”Jungkook smiles, and it’s such a sweet thing. His nose scrunches up like balled paper, and his big round eyes almost disappear into his face. He drops down on his knees beside a now standing Taehyung, and starts filling the basket up with leaves. “Ah, do you sign or?” he asks, dropping back down beside Jungkook to help. Up close, his white tea scent is overwhelming, dribbling across Taehyung’s senses and making his chest feel warm and tight. He tries to breathe in through his mouth, because he knows his own almond scent must be going nuts. Taehyung can’t say he’s ever found himself particularly overwhelmed by an omegan scent before. He’s been attracted to omegas, slept with more than he’s proud of, not that any of that really matters or means anything. But he’s never felt anything more than a pleasant response to someone's scent, never felt his own body reach out to meet a scent with his own physicality. It’s strange and kind of scary to feel that his body is out of his own control. His heart jack hammers with excitement, and his blood runs a degree or two hotter if the sweat at his brow, the back of his neck, and his lower back is anything to go by.He lifts his own unpracticed hands and spells out his name. T-A-E-H-Y-U-N-G. He never got a proper sign name but he remembers the alphabet well.Jungkook wiggles a little on his knees, clearly excited that Taehyung has any sign at all. Maybe no one else around here understands it. “J-U-N-G-K-O-O-K,” he spells with his fingers, and he’s so much more elegant than Taehyung, his long piano-player fingers working smoothly at his will. He hums a little, and it's a beautiful sound. He does another sign that Taehyung doesn’t understand. He holds his two fists together, and makes bunny ears out of the index and middle fingers on each hand, so Taehyung supposes he might be saying Rabbit. Jungkook points to his chest, and then makes the sign again.“Rabbit?” Taehyung asks, flushing a little at his own incompetence. But Jungkook just makes a little squeal of delight and nods his head enthusiastically. He feels a burn that’s something like cute-aggression when he realizes what Jungkook is telling him - that his sign language name is Rabbit. Taehyung repeats the sign, and Jungkook reaches out to fix his hands, then nods in approval.“Jungkook, the rabbit,” Taehyung whispers, and the omega starts to laugh. Maybe it's because he doesn’t speak, but every sound that he manages to catch from Jungkook feels like a tiny revelation.When the basket is full, they walk in silence back over towards the house. He’s not really sure why Jungkook is even here, but half way back he picks up an abandoned bike with a basket full of parcels wrapped in twine. Books, probably from his guardian’s store. “Hello, Jungkook-ah,” Nana Yoon calls out from the back door steps. She’s laid out the garden table with a silk lavender table cloth, and it's crammed with glasses of juice, bowls of prepared fruits, fresh sourdough bread, and every condiment known to man. It looks a bit like the Mad Hatter’s tea party because everything Nana owns is so colourful and mismatched. “What do you have for me today then?” she asks, pulling Jungkook into her chest for a big hug then pushing him back to look at him. “Oh, I do love the new earrings sweetheart.”Jungkook walks towards the table without batting an eyelash, so Taehyung can only presume that their garden parties are a common occurrence. He parks his bike at the tree behind the table, and takes out one of the meticulously wrapped packages, dropping it in front of Nana where she’s now sitting at the table.“You always wrap them up so beautifully, darling,” Nana says, delighted, as she carefully undoes the twine and unwraps the paper as though she’s going to save it. Taehyung would probably relish it too, if he’d gotten something so pretty from Jungkook.“Oh isn’t this just beautiful,” Nana gasps when she unwraps Jane Eyre. She already has ten copies, so Taehyung doesn’t really know what the fuss is, but Jungkook is practically vibrating in his chair as he watches her. Nana runs her hand slowly over the navy blue cover, humming and ahing as though she’s found a treasure hidden away in the garden. Jungkook turns to Taehyung and grins. He pulls a little notepad out of his pocket and spells out the word W-R-I-T-E for Taehyung. It makes him feel a little stupid that Jungkook needs to talk to him in such elementary signs. Jungkook has a tiny pencil to match his tiny notebook."I bring her a new edition whenever one is published." Jungkook holds up the paper for Taehyung to read and then points over to Nana Yoon. She’s smiling softly and leafing through the first few pages of the familiar book. “Do you deliver books to everyone or is Nana Yoon just special?” Taehyung asks, buttering a scone that’s still warm from the oven. The butter immediately melts on the hot, dense biscuit and he follows it up with a thick layer of gooseberry jam. Jungkook laughs and it’s really the most beautiful sound that Taehyung has ever heard. Like babbling brooks, wind through the meadows, soft fingers dragging through fresh laundry, he could melt in it for the rest of the afternoon.
"I deliver all around the village, but Nana Yoon is the most special. If there’s something you like to read, I can bring it too."
He writes quickly, but Taehyung wonders if they’ll ever be able to have the kind of fast paced conversations he and Hoseok have. Where they spit insults back and forth, cutting and harsh because they love each other and are confident enough in that to take the piss out of each other. “How did you lose your voice?” he hears himself ask, and as soon as he’s said it he realizes how rude he’s being. Maybe Jungkook doesn’t want to talk about it. They’ve only just met, and here he is asking the omega to reveal all of his secrets, like he’s done anything at all to earn that information.Jungkook looks at him long and hard, the sunny smile sliding off his face to something impassive as he takes Taehyung in. He’s unrelenting with his eye contact, and Taehyung realizes how revealing it feels to sit under the gaze of someone who isn’t scared to not look away."I didn’t lose anything," Jungkook scribbles with a little frown on his face. Taeyung can smell a spike of his lovely tea scent as it turns bitter. "I don’t speak and I never will, just in case you’re expecting a miraculous recovery."“Oh,” he just says, not really sure what to say."I’m not broken, you know," he reads over Jungkook’s shoulder as the omega scribbles on his little notepad. When he's done, he holds it up for Taehyung to read. "I’m perfect the way I am."It’s the kind of thing a mom tells their kid, and hopes to all hope they’ll internalize it. Taehyung wonders if Jungkook heard it from his own parents when he was small, or if Jimin and Yoongi had instilled it in him. Or if, unlike Taehyung, he doesn’t struggle with his own self worth at all.For his own part, has never felt more ashamed in his life.The thing is, he couldn’t agree more. Jungkook is perfect just as he is. He wouldn’t change a single thing about him, and despite not knowing everything that there is to know - far from it, he barely knows anything at all - every little thing that he’s learned about Jungkook can only be described as just that - perfect. If Hoseok were here, he’d call him an ableist asshole, and the more he thinks about it, the more he realises how fucked up his thinking had been - to presume that everyone who is different is automatically striving to be “normal”. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, too mortified to meet Jungkook’s eye. Despite everything, the omega doesn’t look angry. He looks patient, and kind, and understanding, and why is that so much worse? How many people does he have to educate in the course of his day, and why did Taehyung have to be one of them? He’s never wanted to impress anyone this much in his life, and instead all he’s done is insult him, knock him over, belittle him. Jungkook reaches out and pinches the top of his arm to make him look back up. When Taehyung does meet those round eyes, Jungkook is smiling again making an Okay sign with his fingers. Nana Yoon coughs and if he’s honest, Taehyung had almost forgotten she was there. She has a coy little smile on her face as she sips her orange juice from an ostentatious champagne saucer. “Now Taehyung, why don’t you cycle Jungkookie back into the village? I need some shrimp paste for dinner, and you can help carry some of the food.”She disappears back into the house before Taehyung can even respond or process her words. “Is that cool?” he asks Jungkook, who is gobbling down a final scone and some chopped mango. He gives Taehyung a thumbs up.After Nana packs Jungkook’s basket with tupperware, and Taehyung grabs his bike from the garage, they head off. It’s kind of nice to cycle along the winding roads, and through the tea fields with company, and yet without the burden of conversation. He doesn’t want to talk much these days anyway. He thinks if he tries to shout over to Jungkook as they race down the hills, his voice might be lost to the roaring of the wind in their ears.When they get to the town, Jungkook leads him towards the shop. Taehyung doesn’t get off his bike when Jungkook hops off of his own, just stalls on the seat and watches him as he slots it into one of the slats at the bike rack. Unbuckling his helmet, Jungkook turns around to blind him with another one of his broad smiles. A rabbit smile, he realizes, feeling a little something start to flutter in his stomach. Maybe not a butterfly, he’s not sure he has the capacity for butterflies these days. But something, a little brown moth coming alive, maybe, or just the results of too much coffee with his scones.When he’s off his bike, Jungkook pulls his notepad out of his pocket and starts to scribble. Taehyung pulls his cap down low over his eyes as the sun starts to glare.“Do you want to come over tomorrow to play Nintendo? ” Jungkook hands him the note and shuffles on his feet as he waits for Taehyung to read it.“Yeah, definitely,” Tae says, squeezing the handlebars of his bike and flaring his nostrils as Jungkook’s scent flourishes with happiness. He’s so cute. “Um, lunchtime?”Jungkook pouts as he thinks, then holds up one hand with his palm facing his own chest. He pops up his index and middle finger, and swipes it to the left twice. Taehyung recognises it as the number 12. “Got it,” he grins. It makes his face feel strange, tired and unpracticed at straining itself that way. It’s probably the first time he’s smiled in weeks, and the thought makes him feel sad and guilty. He lets it slide off his face as quickly as it appeared, Jungkook watching him silently with a little cock of his head. The shop is closed now at nearly 5pm, so Taehyung waits as Jungkook fishes his keys out of his basket and unlocks the front door. Jungkook blushes at the door as he gives him a little wave, and then disappears inside, arms full of the Tupperware bounty from Nana.Like Groundhog day, Taehyung dismounts and walks his bike back through the village. He feels another little twinge of guilt when he realizes that he’s two hours late to call Hoseok, and the rough feeling in his chest makes him push faster up the hill. It’s not worth jumping back on to cycle. The town is about as abuzz as a town like this can be, with people finishing up for work or heading out for dinner with their families. There's only one back-ass restaurant in the town, and it's already jammed as he passes. The little moth in his stomach starts dancing when he pauses to peruse the menu for a few minutes, imagining himself and a cute, little round eyed omega eating together, sharing some seafood bibimbap.Maybe Jungkook would let him portion up his plate, keep his water glass fresh and full. His alpha preens at the thought, rolling over and showing his belly at the thought of feeding a pretty omega like Jungkook, making him content.When he gets to the phone booth, there are more groceries inside. He forgot to ask Jungkook or Nana about it, but the meticulous way the groceries are packaged and labelled makes him think of the books. He finds himself a little less annoyed about it, today. “Hi, this is the answering machine of Jung Hoseok. Because I have an answering machine now.”Taehyung sighs. Just another day trying to catch a piece of Jung Hoseok.“Hey. So I guess it's a good thing you have an answering machine since you literally never pick up.” Taehyung chuckles. “Anyway, Boseong still sucks, so no change there. But some of the, eh, more aesthetic advantages of the countryside are making themselves known. Watch this space, loser.”He makes it home just before the sun sets. It isn’t until he’s stood in front of the ancient mirror in Nana Yoon’s only bathroom, cleaning up for dinner, that he realises that he cried the whole way home. When Taehyung enters the shop at 11.55am the next morning, Yoongi trails him around the shop with his eyes. The downside of there being basically only one shop in the town is that when you want to bring a gift for the cute omega that invited you to play video games, you have to shop in his guardian’s store… his dad? Who knows. But Yoongi is watching him with shrewd eyes and a raised eyebrow as he fondles the mangoes and peaches, trying to decide which makes a better gift. He takes one mango, and two peaches in the end, and sighs deeply as he walks up to the counter.“Well, well, well,” Yoongi says, punching some prices into his cash register. Taehyung just frowns and looks at his feet. He was never good with parents, barely even speaks to his own these days. “How was the Pavement record?”“I liked it. Summer Babe was a great opening track. I still prefer Indigo, but I can see the influence.” Yoongi just nods, and bags up his fruit in a little striped wax paper bag. Taehyung is only going upstairs, hardly needs a bag for three pieces of fruit, but neither of them acknowledge it. At least not until Yoongi grabs his shoulder as he makes his way towards the door behind the counter.“Hold on a second, Heathcliff,” Yoongi pulls him away from the door and levels him with what Taehyung thinks is his best withering glare. “What are your intentions with my Jungkookie?”Taehyung just rolls his eyes and pulls the fruits to his chest. “Well he invited me over, and last I checked he wasn’t a baby.”Yoongi growls a little, bearing his pointy canines and pushing forward into Taehyung’s space with a flare of amber in the air. “Firstly, kid, he is my baby. And no James Dean, wannabe Rebel With a Cause is going to roll in here and change that.” Yoongi’s voice is low and guttural, like sandpaper on baby soft skin, and Taehyung feels himself backing away towards the door. “Secondly, this is still my fucking house, so be respectful or get the fuck out of here.”Taehyung swallows, looking at the door between Yoongi and the exit, weighing up his options.“Okay alpha,” says a small man who pops his head up from the stacks of books at the back of the shop. “Down boy.”The blonde man makes his way over towards the counter. Like Yoongi, he looks to be in his late 30s, 40 max. But it's in that kind of way where he could be 25. He still has baby fat in his cheeks, and his eyes are soft and fairy-like. Whether it's a natural grey, or whether he’s wearing contacts, Taehyung isn’t close enough to say, but he has an ethereal quality about him. It isn’t until he’s standing right in front of Taehyung that he scents out that the man is an alpha, too. “Hi, I’m Jimin,” he says, thrusting out a tiny hand to Taehyung with a smile. “You must be Taehyung. Go on, he’s waiting for you, don’t listen to this one.”Yoongi just grumbles again, far more placated now that his partner has intervened. They make a cute couple, Taehyung is man enough to admit it. Neither of them is really giving the stereotypical alpha energy, with their diminutive statures and delicate features. He’d even be willing to take a punt on the so-called “baby” of the house being taller, and broader than both of them. Taehyung realizes that he’d probably been small minded enough to think that same secondary gendered couples like Yoongi and Jimin couldn’t really survive in a small place like Boseong. He just nods at Jimin and avoids Yoongi’s gaze as he makes his way over to the door that leads upstairs.“Up the stairs, second door on the right, honey,” Jimin’s voice follows him as he wanders through the hall and up a small wooden stairway. It’s a cramped but cosy little house, and the hallways are jammed with books and records that he guesses are awaiting stacking. There doesn’t seem to be much order in the shop either, so there might be some method to Yoongi and Jimin’s madness that he hasn’t figured out yet.He raps on Jungkook’s door and bites his lip as he waits. When the door swings open, Jungkook is standing there with the broadest, off-centre grin on his face, and Taehyung just melts. He’s pulled his thick curls back with a Hello Kitty clip and he’s wearing overalls. Taehyung feels himself start to blush, and it just seems to be a thing when he’s around Jungkook, if the three occurrences he has in his observational data studies are anything to go by.Jungkook waves and signs the familiar, "Hello." Taehyung coughs, nervous to share what he’d spent the night learning. He’d found a book that he'd gifted Nana back when he was learning in high school. It was supposed to encourage her to learn herself, but hey, at least it had finally come in handy. He stayed up until 3am memorising the pictures last night, determined to have something to say to Junkook this afternoon. It was much harder to learn from a book though. He’d spent all evening during dinner, during his bath, into the late night replaying his fuck up from yesterday, wanting to show Jungkook that he wasn’t a total asshole.Slowly and with hands that feel like they belonged to another person entirely, he fumbles through his greeting. His hands are sweaty once again, and he has to prop his little bagged gift up underneath his elbow to manage, but he’s determined to at least try.“Hi Rabbit ,” he signs. “Thank you for inviting me.” Or that’s what he hopes he said.Jungkook gasps and when Taehyung snaps his eyes back up at the sound, his round eyes are like big chocolate conkers, glistening in the soft tungsten lighting. He grabs Taehyung’s hands and drags him into his bedroom, kicking the door closed behind him. He doesn’t know Jungkook well enough to have expected anything really, but if he had to hazard a guess at what his bedroom might have looked like, he thinks he could have come close. It’s painted coral, small and warm like the rest of the house, with a big double bed that still has his nest laid out on it. Taehyung feels a heat in the pit of his stomach as his eyes gloss over the bundled cottons, patchwork quilts, and soft downy fleece he’s arranged into a cute, snug little U shape. There’s pencils, paints, palettes, and art work everywhere. On a small desk by the window, there’s a half finished watercolour painting of a garden. And oh, Jungkook is talented.Taehyung walks over to look at the painting more closely. It reminds him of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, a movie he and Hoseok had obsessively watched on repeat when they were still teenagers. There’s something so familiar about it, like if he touched the washy watercolour, he could disappear into a mislaid memory, or the kind of dream that teeters on the edge of your consciousness when you wake - not quite there, and not quite lost yet. “You’re incredible,” he whispers, almost lost to the hazy pinks and purples. Jungkook twiddles his thumbs and bites his lip, but he also looks a little like he knows how amazing his art is. For such a soft, cute guy, Taehyung kind of loves how confident the omega is. It’s not arrogance or self-importance, just this sweet understanding of himself, a kind of peace with who he is and what he’s capable of. Taehyung doesn’t know if he’ll ever feel that way about himself, about his own perfunctory talents - his poetry, his saxophone. He wants a little of the light that Jungkook seems to keep inside of himself, in abundance. Jungkook has laid out a little blanket in front of his TV-VCR on the floor. His Super Nintendo is already turned on, and a Mario demo is playing on the screen. “S-N-A-C-K-S?” Jungkook spells it first, slowly, and then follows it up with the sign. He flicks the thumb and two fingers of his left hand towards his mouth in quick succession, then looks at Taehyung expectantly. He repeats the sign, hoping for the best. He still feels so self conscious but the way Jungkook smiles whenever he tries to sign makes him feel like he’ll never be cold again a day in his life. He wants to try hard for the rest of his life at everything he does, learn every sign there is, become a master of the language, just so he can see that smile again. He starts to wonder if true mates are really a thing and not a myth at all, because why does he already feel like he could give up anything for this boy?Jungkook manhandles him down onto the blanket, takes the proffered fruits with a broad grin, and disappears from the room. Taehyung takes the opportunity to look back towards the nest. He can’t help it. The smell of white tea is so intense in that part of the room, and his brain is throwing all of these images of Jungkook rolling around in it, dressed in the tiny cotton shorts he can see draped over the back of the armchair, face pushed into the soft-pink linen pillow cases with his hands wandering down the golden skin on his beautiful chest.Fuck. Taehyung can feel his dick start to twitch, and he bites hard on his lower lip to get his shit back under control. He can’t pop a boner in Jungkook’s bedroom. He’s not 15 anymore. Jungkook comes back in and Taehyung stares resolutely at the tiny Italian plumber jumping down the pipes on the TV screen. The omega lays out the chopped fruit, cutely arranged in a bowl, an enormous bag of honey chips, and a 2 litre bottle of soda. He pulls two little plastic tumblers from his overall front pocket, which might be the cutest thing of all time. When Jungkook sits down, cross-legged, they push their knees together and pick at the fruit. Jungkook eats so much and so fast that his cheeks puff up like he’s a chipmunk, drizzles of mango juice running down his chin. Taehyung wants to reach out and rub the juice, taste it right off his pretty chin. He focuses his attention back to the screen, until Jungkook taps him on the shoulder. He holds up a finger to grab Taehyung’s attention, then runs over to the locker at his bedside. He opens the drawer and pulls out a sketchbook before he runs back over and lands on the floor beside Taehyung.He flips through the pages with his tongue between his teeth and a little frown, and then pauses at a page and tears it out. He hands it to Taehyung. It’s a chalk pastel sketch of a squirrel in an oak tree, and though he doesn’t know why, it makes his throat start to ache. He can feel the tears filming in his eyes, and oh his heart is so sore. He looks up at Jungkook, who is just watching him with a soft expression. He flips to the end of the sketchbook and scribbles on the page.“You brought me fruit, so this is for you.” Then he makes a sign with his hands that Taehyung doesn’t recognize. He brings two fists together with his thumbs pushed upwards, and smiles expectantly. Taehyung thinks that it kind of looks like his fists are kissing, and for a crazy moment he thinks that’s what Jungkook is asking him for, but Jungkook just nods towards his bag and smiles when Taehyung tucks away the drawing. They play Super Mario for a few hours, and Taehyung gets totally lost in the sweet cadence of Jungkook’s giggles, his little huffs of air when he’s losing, the flush of white tea when he finishes a level and Mario catches the flagpole just right. “Oh,” he says when they’ve finished a snack break and Jungkook’s laid out on the carpet on his back. Taehyung can see just a sliver of skin through the side hole of his overalls where Jungkook’s t-shirt has ridden almost completely up, and he has to swallow hard to continue. “I made something for you.” Jungkook sits bolt upright, a little look of shock on his face, but he looks pleased. Let it never be said that Taehyung can’t multi-task, because while he’d been studying his signs last night, he’d sat up with Nana’s double tape deck running, recording songs from the suitcase of tapes he’d brought with him to Boseong: The Replacements, Husker Du, Mission of Burma, even some Pavement. He’d recorded them all onto his little blank tape for Jungkook, and finished out Side B with his favourite song from RM’s first album, Mono.
Moonchild, you shine
When moon rise, it's your time
Come on, ya'll
Moonchild, don't cry
When moon rise, it's your time
Come on, ya'll
Moonchild, you shine
When moon rise, it's your time
Come on, ya'll
He wasn’t creative like Jungkook, and now that he’d seen the omega’s paintings, he slapped himself on the back for not embarrassing himself by trying to draw. He’d made the liner notes with scraps of paper, washi tape, and some pressed wildflowers he found in Nana’s sitting room. Carolina-allspice, his own birth flower. Some daisies that grew in the garden. It wasn’t perfect, it was messy, and some of the flowers had smudged the track list, but then Taehyung wasn’t perfect either. He pushed the tape into Jungkook’s hands, and watched his mouth turn into a little Oh. A perfect, pink pout. “It’s just a tape I made. I don’t know what you’re into or if you like music or whatever, but I guessed with your… Yoongi? You probably do…” Jungkook turns the tape around in his hands like it's precious, then clutches it to his chest. He looks at Taehyung for a few beats, his brow creased and his mouth still pursed like he’s sucking on something sweet. Then he puts the tape down on his lap and makes the same sign he’d made when he’d given Taehyung the drawing. The hands, kissing, pushing together. Doing who knows what. It’s funny that despite not understanding the visual of the language, something about the sign and its movements excite Taehyung. “Can you write it down? Or spell it?”Jungkook just smiles and pops the tape in his pocket, shaking his head slightly. Jimin pops his head in the door just as Taehyung’s bringing himself to push a little harder, wanting Jungkook to crack open and spill out all of his secrets. “Lunchtime, honey bunny,” he sings from the hallway, and Jungkook clambers to his feet. “You too Taehyung, I hope you like chicken cutlet and corn sauce. Jungkook-ah still eats like he’s five years old sometimes.”They eat in the kitchen and Yoongi joins them, so Taehyung supposes that in true small town fashion the shop closes for lunch each day. The food is incredible, despite his lack of appetite. He’s still full from the fruit and chips they’d eaten, but Jungkook doesn't seem to have the same problem, gobbling down a second helping of rice and using his finger to scoop off the dregs of corn sauce that remain on his plate when he’s finished. He eats so well that it warms Taehyung’s heart, and he finds himself relishing the food in his own mouth if only because he enjoys how happy it makes Jungkook to eat. “So do we really need to have a talk about doors being left open in this house, honey bunny? Because the waft of hormones when I opened that door. I trust it was just the pinings of youth, and you two weren’t actually doing anything filthy in there, right?”Jimin gives them both a narrow-eyed look and Taehyung tries to sink down into his chair. Jungkook just rolls his eyes and signs back to Jimin. It’s only as he watches Jungkook sign without needing to slow it down for him that he realizes how little he really knows. How much Taehyung’s ineptitude probably holds back the things that Jungkook might want to say to him. “I know you’re 19, but shock, horror, 19 year olds can get pregnant,” Jimin chuckles, spearing his own chicken and nibbling very demurely. Yoongi is giving Taehyung daggers, like it's his fault that Jungkook could get pregnant. They didn’t even do anything. He doesn’t even know if Jungkook likes him like that. He scowls right back.Jungkook makes a little whine, and Taehyung snaps his eyes over to him. It makes his skin prickle, like that primal noise had summoned him, calling him to sooth his mate, tend to him, feed him, and make sure that he is never unhappy again. Internally, he pushes his eager alpha back down into his chest, and tells it to chill the fuck out. He doesn’t want pups right now, maybe ever, but the horny beast that lives inside him is licking its paws, bearing its canines, thumping its tail at the idea of filling Jungkook up with them.“Fine,” says Jimin after a silent war of the eyes with Jungkook. “Do what you want, but be careful and use protection. I’m already too young to have a teenager, you are not making me a Grandfather before I even hit 40.”Jungkook is signing so fast that Taehyung nearly misses when he repeats the sign from earlier. From the drawing, and from the tape. Jungkook follows it up by pointing right at Taehyung, and Jimin and Yoongi’s heads both snap to him with identical looks of shock - granted Yoongi’s is a little harsher, with his sharp canines exposed by the curl of his upper lip. “He did what? ” Yoongi snarls, and Jimin has to hold him back by the shoulders, pin him to the chair so he doesn’t launch himself at Taehyung. Taehyung who is frozen in his chair feeling guilty about… about what? What did he even do?“Calm down Yoongi, they’re kids. Let them be.” Jimin placates him in a soft voice, one he’s already used twice in front of Taehyung today to wind his partner down from the looming threat of violence. “As long as he keeps it in his pants, we’ll be fine. I should have known with the fucking fruit.” Yoongi mutters, not even bothering to look at Taehyung this time. He turns to Jungkook instead, signing as he speaks. “Not all alphas baby, but remember, always alphas.”Tae looks to Jungkook a little helplessly and Jungkook just giggles and leans over to drop some more chicken on Taehyung’s plate. When Jungkook walks him downstairs after lunch, Taehyung feels a little bit like a kid who’s spent the afternoon around grown ups, having grown up conversations. He might not have understood the words, but he picked up on the tone alright. He has the uncanny feeling that he’s done something wrong, but he can’t figure out what. When he opens the front door of the shop to let Taehyung out, Jungkook leans in and kisses him on the cheek. It's so unexpected that Taehyung feels like he could fall over from the tiny, barely there impact of sweet, pink lips on his skin.“Oh,” he whispers, looking up at Jungkook’s wide eyes, his lovely round face. He doesn’t look nervous at all, just content, and happy, and maybe slightly expectant. Taehyung, who has never stumbled over a pick up line in his life, feels so inexperienced when standing in front of this confident omega. He’s never had a problem picking people up, taking them home, making the smooth moves he needed to to talk them into his bed. And yet, something as innocent as a kiss on the cheek has him feeling like a blushing virgin. Jungkook leans in again and catches his lips with his own, looping his arms around Taehyung’s neck and pulling him close to his chest. He sucks Taehyung's bottom into his soft, wet mouth and sighs. They kiss for what is probably only minutes, but it feels like they’re suspended in time until Jungkook pulls back and nuzzles into his neck. Taehyung can’t help but feel like the entire afternoon has drifted away from him somehow, like he’d lost the run of what was happening around him and woken from a daydream to find himself here on the step. Kissed by this sweet omega until his lips are bitten, tender, swollen. Kissed until his heart felt light.“Thanks,” he whispers against Jungkook’s hair, the soft hairs tickling his nose and the even softer laughter making his body vibrate. Jungkook pushes him away, then disappears back inside with a little wave. He stands there on the gravel path for a few minutes, even after the door has closed. It's not until Yoongi appears to re-open the shop and practically shoos him away that his body starts to co-operate again. When he rolls over in his bed that night, he almost drops his sign language book on his head. It’s late and he’s been studying for hours. There’s not much else to do here. Every time he thinks about the feel of Jungkook’s soft lips on his own, or holds the sweater he’d worn that day to his nose so he can catch the fading white tea scent, his drive to understand Jungkook takes over. He's gathering words and signs like little secrets, tucking them into his pocket, perfecting them. Taehyung wonders how long it will take until his hands flow faster than his thoughts. It must be 3 am already when he sees it - the sign that Jungkook had made three times that afternoon. The shock doesn't feel like fear, it feels like a lick of tender warmth against his sore heart - like the beginning of something. Courting. He’ll be surprised if, when he looks at the space between his eyes in the mirror in the morning, the book hasn’t left a bruise. “How are you doing, sweet boy?” Nana Yoon asks at breakfast one morning later that week. It’s another strange side effect of being in the countryside and away from Seoul. Taehyung hasn’t been able to sleep past 8 in the morning, no matter how hard he tries. And he’s still staying up late, so it really just means he’s permanently tired. Something about the silence rocks him awake every morning, shakes him out of his dreamless state like there's a chord yanking his chest upwards from the ceiling.There’s so much room to think here, that his thoughts feel like an avalanche, always rushing, tearing down things around him, peeking into the dark recesses of his mind, roaring in his ears. It’s unrelenting. So when he isn’t somewhere else, cycling or with Jungkook, he’s filling his time with as much action as he can. Things like gardening, cleaning, repairing broken shit in the yard, loud physical activities that engage his muscles and keep his brain from overcooking.“Your mother called for you yesterday while you were out. Where did you go, anyway?” Nana asks, as she sets a perfect sunny side up egg on top of his rice. He relishes in watching it wobble for a few moments before he spears it with a chopstick and watches the pretty breakfast become yellow goo, instead.Today isn’t a good day.He just grunts his response. He doesn’t feel like talking, but he especially doesn’t want to talk about his mom. Days like these are a waste from the start to the finish, and he’s better left to stew, to relish in the anguish so that when he wakes up tomorrow he might find some reprieve from it. Today isn't a good day, but if he hides himself away then tomorrow might be better.“She’s worried about you, Tae-ah. They just want you to be well. Don’t hold on to all of that anger, it’s going to swallow you whole.” Nana taps her wrinkled hand on his on the way out of the kitchen, and Taehyung tries his best to ignore the stinging in his eyes. He gobbles up his egg and rice and tosses on his leather jacket. The food doesn't feel warm today, it feels perfunctory and bloating.“I’m going out,” Taehyung calls after her, already stalking across the yard towards his bike. He cycles into town first and makes straight for the phone booth. He knows it's way too early for Hoseok to answer, but he needs to let off some steam. There must only be a couple of minutes left on Betty Boop, so he shoves the card into the slot and prays it lasts long enough for him to talk. “Hi, this is the answering machine of Jung Hoseok. Because I have an answering machine now.”It’s just the mood he’s in that day, the lack of sleep. He’s too tired to fight off the tears that spill from his eyes, too drained to stop himself and all his anger.“You’re a fucking bastard, Jung Hoseok. I’m so tired of you. It’s not fair that I’m here and you’re not,” he sobs into the receiver, snot running down his face and into his mouth. He can taste salt and mucus and the poison of his own words. The only thing Hoseok ever did to warrant them was leaving him behind.“You deserve to be stuck here in the middle of nowhere, falling in love, not me. Why did you do this to me Hob-ah? Why do you have to be such a bastard all the time?”The dial on the payphone starts to beep, and he knows he’s got about 60 seconds before he’s cut off entirely. He’s not even sure he has the coins for another card.“I hate you so much for doing this to me. It’s not fucking fair. You should be here, not me. I hope you never get any rest, I hope I…”He trails off as the line goes dead.There probably wasn’t much space left on the machine’s tape anyway, Hoseok never was good at changing them. Taehyung slams the phone back on the receiver, and kicks the glass of the booth so hard it shakes. He wants his foot to go right through the glass, to cut his jeans and tear through his flesh. So he can feel the pain of impact, so his blood can run right out of his body, and drip into the earth until there’s nothing left of him. He storms from the phonebooth and over to the shop, wheeling his bike in front of him. He’s so angry, but his eyes are still clouded over with tears. He gets a few looks from a few of the locals, and he thinks he snarls at them, because they give him a wide berth or disappear off down a lane way. Dumb, faceless people. Who gives a shit about them anyway?“He’s not home,” Yoongi says when Taehyung storms through the shop’s door and right over towards the fridges. He doesn’t even bother to respond, because frankly, it's a good thing that Jungkook isn't here today. He wants to be so mad, and he can’t do that around sweet, doe eyes and lingering lips.When he gets to the counter, he lays the soju bottles out like soldiers - three generals in military green, and a bag of peanuts. He’s not hungry, but he doesn’t want to black out because he didn’t eat again. More feul for his Mom, if he did. And as angry as he is, he couldn't have Nana Yoon seeing him in like that.Yoongi just folds his arms and stares him down.“And you think I’m going to sell you these at 10am in the morning, why exactly?”Taehyung rolls his eyes, and tosses some money on the counter. He shoves the bottles into his bag, and storms out. “Hey,” Yoongi calls out to him, but fuck that mean bastard and his judgemental looks. Taehyung is not in the mood for it. He’s 21 years old, he’s not a child. Yoongi and Jimin might treat Jungkook like he was born ten minutes ago, but those guys are nothing to him. He cycles out of the town, back in the direction of his house, but when he hits the fork for his Nana’s lane, he takes the other turn. Just keeps cycling in the blistering heat, way too hot in his leather jacket, and his tears blurring up his eyes. Fuck this dumb place and its heat. Why does it have to be so hot all the time? He needs aircon, arcade games, purple lemonade with thick, fat ice cubes. Taro boba. Dancing until his breathing gives out. He needs Hoseok, and isn’t that a fucking joke? He stops when he gets to the brook. It’s a little off the road, so he has to jump off his bike and push it over the lumpy grass. His racing tires, thin as paper on the rough country terrain, bounce the bike around so violently he has to grip the handlebars and practically drag along. When he reaches a big, shady alder tree, he lets the bike drop to the ground, and lays out his leather jacket to sit on. His spot overlooks the brook where it is at its most exuberant, the water lashing down on the black rocks and going still further down the stream. The noise is nice, but he puts his headphones on anyway. He doesn’t particularly want to be calmed by the ASMR of nature, he’d much rather fester in his thoughts today. He gets one bottle of soju down before a half hour has even passed. He doesn’t feel guilty at all as the alcohol runs down his throat, raw and unforgiving. He feels so far from guilty, he feels nothing at all, and that’s a wonderful thing. RM is crooning in his ears about how everything goes, everything goes, and isn’t that so funny?
It passes
(Everything, everything, everything goes
Everything, everything, everything goes)
It passes
(Everything, everything, everything goes
Everything, everything, everything goes)
It passes
It’s been a year already, and nothing goes. The only thing that goes is the sharp focus of Taehyung’s memories. The shared laughter in his garden when they were kids, running around with their Transformers and their Captain Scarlett like there was nothing outside those gates that could ever hurt them. Nothing that Taehyung’s parents couldn’t protect them from. Nothing passes except how clear those memories used to be. Now, the violent shock of red in his t-shirt, the vibrancy of Hoseok’s denim blue fade over time, a photograph left too long out in the sun. Trying to stop it from fading is like trying to hold water in his hands.Tahyung tosses some stones into the brook as he finishes the second bottle, and the shockwave that spreads through the turbulent stream gives him some satisfaction. It makes a perfect, elegant circle on the surface and then disappears.He’s drunk now, properly drunk. So drunk that he thinks if he stood up now, he’d fall right down on his ass again. He’s falling asleep against the tree trunk after a lunch of three peanuts, when he hears rustling through the long grass.“Well, we might have done better if someone wasn’t fucking stones in the water, for one,” says a tall guy who appears over the hill at the other side of the water. He’s handsome, long legged, wholesome looking in some fishing shorts, knee high gumboots and a loose pink tank top. The giggle that follows his voice is immediately recognizable, and Taehyung feels a warm buzz in his cheeks and chest. His omega is walking over the hill now, laughing and burying his hands deep in some cobalt blue shorts. His matching hoodie is loose and he has sweater paws. Taehyung thinks it's like seeing a glass of water dangling from the sky when you’re dying of thirst in the desert.Jungkook catches his eye from the other side of the brook and waves, his smile broad like a half wheel of cheese. His friend looks between them and pouts, and he can already bet without smelling this guy that he’s an alpha. A tall, handsome, not drunk off his face alpha who is probably ten times better for Jungkook than he is. Who Jungkook's Dad probably slaps on the back and calls Sonny Jim. Who isn’t going to embarrass himself when he can barely stand in about 30 seconds. Jungkook hops over the brook like it's a puddle, and his friend yelps behind him, but he canters on. Stranger guy follows Jungkook through the water in his wading boots, a large fishing rod propped over his shoulder. He shouts something after Jungkook, who is now running through the grass and over towards Taehyung.“Hi,” he signs, his hands moving quickly even though he’s still running. He’s so graceful and coordinated, like a gazelle, and Taehyung can’t relate. He’s trying to sit himself up, pulling back off the rough bark of the tree that’s been digging into the back of his head. His hands keep slipping in the grass, and his head scrapes off a branch.“Hi baby,” he drawls as Jungkook drops down on his knees in the grass a few feet from Taehyung. His big eyes are moving slowly between the empty bottles of soju and the third full one in his hand. Taehyung tries to slip it down into the long grass, tries to hide, but who is he kidding really? He knows he stinks, and he knows he's probably slurring too. Almonds sure smell like shit when they're drenched in hard liquor. Jungkook glances over his shoulder when his tall friend arrives. He’s a beta, actually, and he smells like faint saltwater. In another time in space, that might have been a comfort.Jungkook turns back to Taehyung with a slightly trepidatious expression before he finger spells, “S-E-O-K-J-I-N.” He follows it with a sign that Taehyung recognizes to mean tuna, and it's really cute that Jungkook names people after animals. He wonders if he’ll get an animal name some day, or if he’s already in the process of ruining things right now. “Hi Seokjin,” he says and it’s fine really until he hiccups half way through. That seems so funny because then he can’t stop laughing. Jungkook is looking at him like he’s concerned, and what's so concerning about being a little drunk before midday? The guy, Seokjin, is frowning at him and reaching out an arm to pull Jungkook away, and that really isn’t funny. Jungkook starts signing frantically and even if he were sober, Taehyung knows that he couldn’t keep up. He recognizes some words here and there, but mostly he has tunnel vision for Jungkook’s big, chestnut eyes, tunnel nose for the slight prickle of thorns in his white tea scent. He made his omega sad. Seokjin steps forward and watches Jungkook’s hands, turning to Taehyung to interpret.“He wants to know what's wrong, and why you’re here at midday pissed out of your mind.” Jungkook frowns at Seokjin, who rolls his eyes. “Okay I may have added a little colour, but it’s not like I’m lying Kook-ah. He’s totally fucked.”Seokjin is looking at him kindly, which is somehow more annoying than if he’d looked at Taehyung like he was dirt under his shoe. Not that he can imagine someone as sweet as Jungkook being friends with someone that thinks like that. For his own part, he’s determined to hate this tall beta with the perfect hair, perfect lips, and perfect level of sobriety.“None of your fucking business if I’m drunk or sober or whatever I am, is it?” he spits, taking a long swig from the soju bottle he’s been clutching like a lifeline. Jungkook just frowns and crawls over to him on his hands and knees. He reaches out and lays a hand on Taehyung’s knee, his eyes sad and warm. Taehyung wants to cry for how little he deserves the kindness, how pathetic he must look in front of Jungkook’s friend. How Seokjin must be thinking, God this guy is so below Jungkook’s league it isn’t even funny. Can’t the omega smell how sad he is? How guilty he is? How much he’s already fucked up his own life, and how much he doesn’t want to fuck up Jungkook’s? If he doesn't know it yet, he's about to learn the predictable nature of Taehyung's ineptitude.He takes Jungkook’s hand in his own for a beat, and then pushes it away. “Leave me alone, Jungkook,” he whispers, his eyes filling up with tears. He can see Jungkook signing in his periphery, through the blurry tears because he is just crying like an idiot isn’t he? But he keeps his eyes fixed on the grass, not wanting to see his pity or his anger or whatever it is that Taehyung is making him feel. Jungkook makes a little noise of frustration, and taps him on the knee but he doesn’t look up.“You could at least look at him when he’s speaking to you,” Seokjin spits, and the kindness is definitely gone now. He’s pissed off, and Taehyung feels far more comfortable with that. He’s pissed off with himself, too. “You could at least fuck off and leave me alone,” he sighs, not even able to muster the energy to shout or growl or bare his canines or whatever the fuck it is that territorial alphas are supposed to do.Jungkook leans in close and taps him on the cheek with the flat of his palm - not hard, just enough that Taehyung can’t look away. His brown eyes are so big and rich, like Ecuadorian chocolate melting in a saucepan. He can feel the calming pheromones that Jungkook is releasing, smells them even out here in nature, where every plant and leaf and flower is competing with that still, mild tea scent. He sobs as Jungkook takes both of his hands in his own, squeezes them tight with his warm fingers. The dam isn’t just broken, it's gushing all out over the forest floor, destroying everything in its wake. Taehyung doesn’t have the control over his mind right now to be humiliated that he’s sobbing like a baby in front of Jungkook and some guy. Seokjin is socially ept enough to wander off a few meters, his head turned away and his ears pricked. He might be facing the other direction, but he’s still attuned to Jungkook, still waiting to step in and save the day when Taehyung eventually fucks up. Like he hasn’t already. Taehyung lets Jungkook hold him for a while, lets him take the soju from his hands and empty it out onto the grass. When the crying doesn’t stop, he lets Jungkook and Seokjin manhandle him to the beta’s jeep, maybe 200 meters down the road from where he’d come off the road. They throw his mom's old racer in the back of the truck.Taehyung sits in the back of the car and lets Jungkook buckle him in. He lets Jungkook hold him up while they drive in silence. The only noise is the subtle hum of the engine and the wind through the small gap in the rolled down window. When they get back to Nana Yoon’s, Jungkook waves Seokjin on. After a heated conversation that Seokjin decidedly does not interpret for him, Jungkook stays and Seokjin leaves. He walks Taheyung into the house, and even though he’s smaller, he doesn’t buckle under the alpha’s weight. Nana Yoon is out, which is a small grace. Jungkook lays him on his bed, and for a minute he feels the prickle of embarrassment at the state of the place. His unmade bed, clothes on the floor, the tapes everywhere, the three half glasses of water on his bedside table. He lets it wash over him when Jungkook climbs in too, and pulls the flannel sheet right up to their chins. “I need to listen to stuff to go to sleep,” he croaks, batting at the machine beside the bed, finally settling his finger on the Play button. “Hi, this is the answering machine of Jung Hoseok. Because I have an answering machine now.” Hoseok’s voice rings out through the room first, and then the answering machine starts playing all of Taehyung’s messages. He closes his eyes as they listen to two weeks worth of them, because it's always after two weeks that he has to wipe the tape clean and start over again. He closes his eyes, listens to himself talk to his dead best friend about falling in love, about the omega in the small shop in Boseong, about learning to express himself with his hands, about the back-arse-of-nowhere place he’s gotten himself stranded in. They listen to the angry message he’d left this morning, and hear the anger in his voice. He feels the tears dribble all over the pillow as Jungkook makes soothing circles on his back, clings to his back like a baby koala. He lets himself fall asleep like that, as though he won’t wake up later and regret everything he’s done today.
Nana Yoon is an expert on all things death and courting, Taehyung learns. When Taehyung had woken later that afternoon with his head splitting open and his tongue too big for his mouth, Jungkook was gone. He couldn’t say how long he’d been sleeping, because he had no idea at what time he and Jungkook had gotten into the bed. The journey back to the house is so fuzzy in his head now, like there is a memory in there, but it's stuffed in his head with some old, smelly socks. He feels nauseous and he feels sad, but a different kind of sad to earlier. He doesn't feel the intense kind of sadness that makes him destructive, makes him want to piss everyone off, and break everything he owns. He just feels jaded now. Regretful. Hung over, and ashamed. It isn't a nice cocktail, and he knows he needed to fix things.Nana makes him eat a huge dinner, and for once it seems to hit the spot. Thank God for the kind of hangover that makes you want to devour everything instead of the one that makes you want to throw up for hours on end. The fried chicken has reached into his heart and stuck a bandaid on his gaping wound. “I bumped into Jungkookie on my way in. He looked a little rumpled. I hope you’re being careful with that boy,” Nana croons from her spot on the other side of the table. It's becoming a routine, facing each other like this - making small talk over breakfast, lunch, dinner. Nana does most of the talking, and sometimes it feels nice. Sometimes it fills a dead silence in his body, and sometimes it makes him angry.“Oh…” Taehyung swirls his spoon in the seaweed soup and tries not to perk up his ears. “We um… fell asleep for a bit. No big deal.”“He left a note for you,” Nana says, and points over towards the kitchen counter where Jungkook has indeed left a little scrap of folded up paper. He makes himself sit through the rest of the meal before he leaps from the table to devour it. Nana babbles about bingo, the catch of the day down at the market one town over, all of the combined achievements of his high-functioning cousins as reported by Auntie. Still, he forces himself to take both of their bowls to the sink on heavy feet, eyes pinned to the black and white tiles. Nana Yoon is chuckling in the background like despite all of his efforts to play it cool, she can see right through him.He pockets the note.“Jimin told me that you’re courting him,” Nana says just as he approaches the doorway, so nearly making it out alive. “It sort of just… happened. I like him a lot, but…” Taehyung sighs, too tired to lie. Too tired to do much of anything except let his insecurities trickle out. “I don’t know. He could do so much better than me. And I’m not even staying.”"There's absolutely nothing in this world that is preventing you from staying forever, if that's what you want." Nana hums, her knitting needles clicking softly as she winds a ball of pink yarn into a scarf, a jumper, something. “Well, it doesn't really work that way, does it? I don’t think it's up to you really to decide what Jungkook deserves.”“Maybe,” he sighs, resigning himself to the conversation, dragging his feet back to the table and sitting with a frown. “But what does an omega like that want with some delinquent who’s probably going to end up in rehab?”“Sweetheart,” Nana says, putting down her knitting and reaching out a hand across the table. For once he lets her take his hand in her own wrinkled one. Her skin looks like tissue paper, thin and purple. Her hands have done so much in her lifetime, from raising kids to manual labour - the've given and taken so much love. He feels the tears trickling down his face as he observes the way her wedding ring sinks into the soft flesh of her tender fingers.“You are a wonderful person, Taehyung. You’re not a delinquent, you’re grieving. You need to let yourself grieve. I know as well as anyone that you can put it off for half a lifetime, but it will always catch you.” She pats the place where their hands met, and Taehyung thinks about his Grandpa. He passed away when Taehyung was still in primary school. He hadn’t cried at the service, just stared at the photograph of a younger man he never knew. It wasn’t his grandpa, who was kind and silent and wrinkled, who never kissed or hugged but loved you with his eyes. It was someone from a life before him. He’d loved his Grandpa, but he hadn’t known real loss until Hoseok died. How selfish he is to never have thought of his Nana like that - as someone who has suffered real, life changing loss. He’d seen his parents cry, seen Nana sit in her chair for days on end and not cry. They have that in common, the silence of their grief. After Hoseok died, he didn’t cry for nearly two months. It feels like crying is all he can do now.Nana’s right, really. The grief always catches you.“I want to feel better but I feel like I don’t deserve to,” he whispers, clutching onto Nana now like she’s his life boat. She just nods and listens, letting him talk. “I should have died. It’s not fair that he died and I didn’t. I was the one driving.”“I sometimes think it's easier to die than to be the one left behind,” Nana says, tapping his hand once more and then letting it go so she can shuffle across the kitchen to get some tea. Always with the tea. Old people think it can fix anything. Or maybe the tea is just company for the unfixable. “We’re the ones that have to completely re-evaluate our world. Learn how to live in it again.”She wets the tea leaves in her ceramic pot, and carries it over to the table on a little wooden tray. Two small china cups with roses painted on them balance on top of one another. “I don’t want to do all of the things we did before,” he admits, blowing on his own tea. “I don’t want to go back to college because it feels wrong, and I hate my degree anyway. I don’t even want to hang out with our old friends, because it just reminds me that he’s dead.” His voice catches on the last word. It sounds so wrong, the word he hasn’t been allowing himself to think, never mind say.“I can’t even drive. Part of me wants to feel like I used to, but another part of me is scared of feeling normal again, because do I need to start forgetting to feel that way?”Nana Yoon closes her eyes thoughtfully before she speaks.“Normal is doable,” she says with a little frown. “The same? Never. But you can make a new kind of normal. And it doesn’t have to involve avoiding anywhere you ever went with him.” Taehyung realizes how alike they look as she looks at him. They have the same mismatched tiger eyes. They skipped his mom and came right for him instead. He lets his tears plop down like rain into his teacup as she talks. “You can make time in your day for sadness, because although it changes over time, it doesn’t go away. You have to let yourself make room for it in your life, that’s all. Walk with it, even when it feels too heavy. There’s no great key to beating grief, no answer. There’s only letting the sadness in, and letting all of the other good things in too.”They finish their tea in silence, and Nana starts putting the kitchen to bed. She never leaves out laundry, or unwashed dishes, never fails to hang her best cups on their little hooks on the wall below the plant shelf. It’s part of her normal now, Taehyung guesses. Ritual. Repetition. He wonders if he’ll ever find those things. He wants them, badly. He’s ashamed that he wants to feel his head above water again, to feel the sun on his face as he bobs and freckles in the heat. It's been so cold lately, in his chest.“Nana, what do you know about courting?”Nana Yoon laughs and laughs, and it's such a nice sound. Taehyung finds himself smiling too, and that makes Nana laugh even more.“Oh, honey,” she says, sitting back down one chair closer to him this time. “What do you want to know?”“Well, how does it work? Let's say you accidentally give someone a courting gift and you want to… follow up.”Nana’s smile is so smug because obviously they both know they’re talking about Jungkook.“Well, traditionally there is an order to things, but I don’t take Jungkook for a traditional omega. First is food, of course. Something you've made, a meal. Then music, usually. Back in my day, your Grandpa wooed me with a song. Very romantic, and you are so musical darling. You could play him something on your trombone.”“Saxophone, Nana. And I guess I already accidentally did food and music,” he hums, thinking of the fruit, the mixtape. No wonder Jungkook thought he was courting him. “What then?”“Well, usually it's something handmade from wood, and then for the final gift, stone. Gold and silver are usually saved for the mating but that’s a long way away, sweetheart. Just make him something from your heart.”Nana yawns, and bundles up her knitting things. She’s always asleep by 9pm, such is the senior citizen life. Taehyung feels both guilty for keeping her up past her bedtime, and kind of lighter for their talk. “You know who could help you with the wood gift, though?” she smirks as she hobbles across the room, stretching her arms and legs. Her joints pop and crack like rice krispies. “Yoongi. He used to be a professional carpenter, and they still have a little workshop at the back of the shop. I’m sure he’d be delighted to help you.”Taehyung can hear her laughing all the way to bed. He drops his head onto his arms on the table and groans. When he’s in bed, he pulls the scrunched up note from his pocket, and reads it.
Taehyung,
Don’t feel bad when you wake up. Just come talk when you’re ready. I want to listen.
Love,
Jungkook.
Eating shit is, well... shit. No one wants to do it, and it really doesn’t go with the dumb, I-don’t-give-a-fuck image Taehyung has been cultivating of late. If he didn’t give a fuck, it would be much easier to apologize, for one. He hates how much of a fuck he gives, actually. Taehyung stands outside the shop for at least 10 minutes before he works up the courage to go in. And even then, it's because an old man stumbles out and knocks into him. Yoongi has already spotted him, so what does he really win by staying here on the step, slowly losing any of the remaining dignity he has left? “Get the fuck in here already and close the door. It’s too hot out there,” Yoongi snaps, his head already buried back in his book.The walk of shame to the counter feels ten miles long. He feels like Moses in the desert, forty years slipping past as he scrambles the three and a half meters to Yoongi. “Hey,” he says, scuffing his shoe on the floorboards. “How’s it going?”“He’s not here. Again.” Yoongi looks at him shrewdly. “He draws over at Seokjin’s on Tuesdays.”“I, uh, came to see you, actually,” Taehyung mutters, eyeing the stack of manga on the counter. Barefoot Gen, Ranma ½, Urusei Yatsura. Some Taehyung’s read, some he’d seen on Hoseok’s shelves but never gotten around to. He swallows hard, and looks back up to find Yoongi’s eyes on him. “Well, that’s a surprise. Hoping for more booze?” Yoongi’s words make him wince. They’re cold, but he has the barest hint of a smile on his face. Taehyung hears himself hiss out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding in all this time.“Fortunately not. I’m… done with that, I guess,” he shrugs, and flicks some lint from the top of his pants. It’s August, and still far from cold, but for the first time this summer, he’d felt the barest hint of an autumn breeze. Yoongi looks at him long and hard, like he’s considering a puzzle. “Look, Jimin and Jungkook are in Suncheon today, shopping or whatever. I’m about to close up for lunch, so you have one hour to convince me you aren’t a piece of shit. Deal?”Taehyung nods, and then follows Yoongi upstairs when the sign’s been flipped. He doesn’t even lock the door. “I hope you like spicy monkfish, because I’m not cooking anything else.”Taehyung is actually a total baby when it comes to spice, but he knows an olive branch when he sees one. And what's more, he needs Yoongi. He sets the table while Yoongi works at the stove, hands him the soybean sprouts from the fridge, and watches as he prepares the seasonings - minced garlic and ginger, gochugaru, soy sauce, pepper and sugar. Yoongi dips a baby finger in and tastes it with a pleased hum.“Get the knife and I’ll show you how to prepare the fish. If you’re going to date my kid, I’ll be damned if you don’t learn to cook for him first.”Taehyung flushes but watches closely as Yoongi cleans and cuts the fish into 3 inch chunks. When Yoongi hands him back the knife, he does his best to emulate the movements with his clumsy hands. He’s never cooked anything other than ramen, and even then he has a talent for fucking it up. Yoongi just grumbles, corrects him from time to time, but otherwise they work in silence. When the fish has been seared and is braising in their seasonings, Taehyung sets the table, lays out the rice, still warm in the rice cooker, and some iced water. “Not bad, kid,” Yoongi says as he lays a bowl of agujjim in front of Taehyung and sits down opposite him. He’s still scary, but Taehyung thinks he’s starting to understand the older alpha’s gruff language.“So, if you’re here to ask for Jungkook’s hand or whatever, then we don’t do that shit in this house. You’ll have to win him over yourself.”“I want you to help me make something for him. And I also want to apologize, I guess.” Taehyung makes some decided eye contact with his monkfish, which he can’t believe he had any part in making. It’s tender, melt in the mouth, with crisp bean sprouts, watercress and green onions - the perfect marriage of seafood and vegetable. “Well, start by looking me in the eye. You can’t walk through life being sorry all the time. What are you sorry for anyway, acting like the kid you are? You don’t owe me anything.”“I was rude. More than once. And the soju…” he trails off, pushing up his chin and levelling Yoongi with an apologetic half-smile. “Who cares, I’m rude all the time. It gets pretty fucking draining walking around all the time with that chip on your shoulder though, I should know. And I don’t do soft and mushy, but I know what you’re going through. Been there, got the drunk and disorderlies.” Yoongi grimaces for a few moments, and then he smiles at Taehyung. It’s almost shocking. His cold, hard glare turns into something almost cute with the curl of his lip, his menacingly feline eyes rounding into something squishy and warm. He shape shifts from an assassin with a mark on Taehyung’s name to a steamed dumpling in the blink of an eye.“So what are we making then?”Taehyung hesitates, running a hand through his messy hair. “I was thinking of an easel? He had his paintings propped up on like, a DIY cardboard thing? Maybe something portable so he could take it fishing.”Yoongi narrows his eyes and gazes out the window for a few minutes. It’s such a drawn out silence that Taehyung starts to worry he’s going to change his mind, tell him to get the fuck out of the kitchen, out of the shop, maybe even out of the village. “Here’s the deal. You’re doing the work, I’m not going to do it for you. I’ll show you how to use the tools, and I’ll answer your questions. And you’re going to cover the equivalent of my time in the shop, too. I need someone to drive to the flea markets and pick up books and records, so you can do that either. You show up on time, you help cook lunch when you’re here, and you talk to my partner and kid with respect. Got it?”Taehyung nods, standing to bow. “Got it.”“Then we’re cool. Now clean this mess up, and go down to the desk and open up. There’s a phone behind the counter, so call Nana and tell her you’re staying here for dinner. We’ll draw up a plan in the workshop when Jimin gets back to take over.”Taehyung, who knows when he’s been dismissed, stumbles out of the room as fast as he can, convinced that Yoongi is going to change his mind. He sits at the counter downstairs, helps a grand total of three customers, messes up on the register twice and gets waved off by village people who couldn’t care less. Yoongi works in the stacks and lets him sit at the counter. He busies himself during the time between customers with childish sketches of what he wants the easel to look like. He’s not very good at drawing, but he has a good idea in his head. He wants it to be tall enough that Jungkook can work standing up. He wants it to be in a light, pretty wood because it suits Jungkook better than darker, moody ones. He wants it to fold down easily so Jungkook can paint by the river, turn the beautiful green tea fields, hills, and streams into gorgeous, ethereal landscapes on paper and watercolour. At four o’clock, the bell above the door rings and Jungkook and Jimin arrive. They both look shocked to see Taehyung behind the counter, but while Jungkook’s smile is broad and innocent, Jimin’s quickly turns knowing. He prowls over to Yoongi and whispers in his ear, while Jungkook drops his shopping bags behind the counter.“Hi Rabbit ,” Tae signs, trying hard not to focus on the things he’d done the last time they spoke. He knows he owes Jungkook an apology, Seokjin too, but he’d rather do it in private, without an audience. Yoongi reads his mind when he says, “Take your break. Be back down here in 15 minutes and we’ll go out back, got it?”Jungkook looks between Yoongi and Tae with a small confused smile, but he grabs Taehyung’s hands and fumbles with his shopping bags and pulls him upstairs. When they’re in his bedroom, Jungkook sits down on the edge of his bed, perching on the periphery of his nest. He doesn’t do anything else, just looks at Taehyung like he knows there’s something to be said. He doesn’t look angry, or hurt, he just looks soft. Soft eyes, so round and glossy, soft cheeks, soft lips. Taehyung swallows hard.“Jungkookie, I’m so sorry you had to see me like that. I’m sorry I was such a fucking asshole to your friend.” Jungkook blinks and sighs. He signs first, then bites his lip, pulling out his notebook."When you don't look at me when I talk, you're silencing me."Taehyung feels like crying when he reads it. He digs his hands into his pockets, and walks closer to the bed, somewhat hesitantly. Jungkook nods and smiles, and Taehyung takes that as his cue to sit down beside him. “I’m so sorry. I'm sorry I silenced you and I'm sorry that I pushed your hand away. I’m sorry that you had to take care of me,” his voice rambles away, a barely there whisper as Jungkook takes his hand and squeezes it softly. “I’m used to other people seeing me be a fuck up, but I really didn’t want you to see it. They sit in silence for a bit, and then Jungkook taps him on the knee to look up. He leans in to kiss Taehyung on the cheek, and then signs to him. Taehyung doesn’t catch most of it, but he can tell that Jungkook is trying to soothe him. He recognizes the sign for friend, two index fingers hooked together. Two people, inexplicably linked for life and beyond, just like he and Hoseok. Hoseok who wasn’t here any more, but would always be a part of him. “Tell me,” Jungkook signs, and then spells “H-O-S-E-O-K”. “Yeah,” Taehyung whispers back. “Hobi. Hob-ah. Sunshine.”He pulls out his wallet and takes out a faded photo booth strip from two summers ago - he and Hobi squeezed into the too-small booth in the train station at Jamsil. Hobi’s hair was peroxide blonde, and cut short like a pixie. Tae was in his bubblegum blue era, a freshman in Yonsei, determined to shake off the wallflower personality he’d cultivated in high school. “He was the coolest ever. Like, effortlessly cool, and not in the Oh I’m aloof and treat people like shit kind of way, either. Nicest person you’ve ever met, cool. Captain of the dance squad, more talent in his little finger than most people have in their entire bodies.”Taehyung’s voice is thick with tears, and it hurts to force the words out. But for once he doesn’t feel sad. Or not just sad. The thing that happens when someone you love dies, is that everyone rushes to comfort you. They want so badly to distract you from the pain, make you feel better, that no one actually wants to talk about the person you lost. And then you fall into the habit of trying not to think about them either, even though your heart, your brain, your body wants to do nothing but. It feels so nice to talk about Hobi. About the things they did, and about how colourful he was. How his laugh sounded so much rougher than you’d expect, how he was so much more than just happy all the time. He was driven, and short tempered, and had high standards. He balanced out Taehyung’s natural ease of life, pushing him to think he could be more, too. All of the things Taehyung thought he wanted to be before their accident, before he drank a year away and came to Boesong, he’s not sure he wants any of it anymore. It would be impossible for Hoseok’s death not to throw him on a different course. The idea of going back to Yonsei to study business seems laughable, now. The streetwear fashion line they wanted to start together so they could merge his instincts for business and music with Hoseok’s passion for dance and fashion… It seems so far-fetched. Something that a different Taehyung, in a different time in space, might have done. Jungkook just smiles and rubs his knee when Taehyung tells him that he thinks he needs to find an entirely new direction in life, and how much that scares him. How he feels like a newborn foal, learning to walk for the first time. Learning to walk again, with new legs. Taehyung fits as many words as he can into the fifteen minutes they’re pushed together on the bed beside Jungkook’s nest. Jungkook just nuzzles into his neck. Nana Yoon was right afterall, he is a beautiful listener. When he’s leaving, Jungkook gives him a bag of pick n’ mix candy he brought back from Suncheon - a mix of fizzy snakes, cola bottles, apple bonbons. He nestles it into the bottom of his bag, then loses himself in kissing Jungkook. He tastes sweet too, like mint chocolate that he probably ate in the city. His lips are smooth and unpracticed, but so confident, and Taehyung is certain he could kiss them every day for the rest of his life."T-I-G-E-R," Jungkook spells then points to Taehyung. He holds up two splayed hands to cover his face, before pulling them away, demonstrating the sign he's chosen for Taehyung. It's strangely beautiful - hands that cover him up entirely, then slip away to show who he really is. "I love your stripes, so don't be afraid to show them to me." Taehhung has no idea what the rest of the year holds, or where things will go with Jungkook. But he knows that, for now, they’re in the right place at the right time, together. And he isn’t going to let go of that easily.
To be out of place, it hurts so much
If you don't experience it, it cannot be known
My ideal and my reality are so far, far away
But I still want to cross those two bridges
To reach myself
To reach the real me, yeah, yeah
To reach the real me, yeah