Chapter Text
“Tae, what are you doing"
"Tae, please"
"Tae, get off of me"
--
He awakes with a start. The room is dyed deep indigo and his neck is resting at an uncomfortable angle. Namjoon touches him softly along the spine.
"Same dream?”
"Yeah”
There are wisps of smoke dancing in the air. Namjoon only smokes when he's sad. Usually after sex, sometimes before. They both think too much and their coping mechanisms are hardly healthy.
"Smoke less”
"Can't”
It's not his place to pluck the wilting cigarette from between his teeth. It's more his place to kiss those wasted lips, tangle a hand through his hair and pull him in for more.
"Come close" Jimin whispers.
Namjoon obliges. His naked torso presses against Jimin's front and he relishes in the heady warmth of another's body against his own.
They're just licking wounds. But it's all they know how to do.
--
Living with Taehyung means scheming. It means carefully calibrating his schedule so Namjoon (and some others but not as often) can slip through the cracks, unseen. Like an intricate tag-team system Namjoon departs and Taehyung enters, seventeen minutes later. Taehyung doesn't know. He can't know. That Jimin brings home strangers to fuck in their shared bedroom and has kissed more pairs of lips than he can count. He’s placed his hands on so many hearts (but they aren’t Taehyung, they’ll never be Taehyung) and he’s broken most, if not all.
It would all be a little less complicated if Taehyung wasn’t- well, Taehyung. Taehyung is problematic in the way that he is a dreamer. He wants it all. The happy family. Four children and a lovely wife. A house by the sea and a garden bursting with the scent of Magnolia.
Factor in soulmates, and Jimin is quite frankly, factored out (as if he wasn’t before).
So Jimin settles for less. He settles for strangers to soothe the ache. He settles for trying not to think about Taehyung and instead focusing his energy on preparing for the inevitable; the reveal of Taehyung’s soulmate and the combustion of his entire world. He waits with bated breath and a terribly anxious heart for Taehyung’s birthday like it’s his execution date (in a way, it is).
He can only hope it won’t hurt too much.
--
“You need to be out in thirty-four minutes”
“Shit, better take a quick shower then”
“You do that”
Jimin watches the lanky expanse of Namjoon’s shoulders tense and uncoil as he pulls away and steps out of bed. He’s built, mature in that adult kind-of-way that betrays his age. At six years older than Jimin he has plenty going on, most of which he doesn’t care to divulge with Jimin. Which is fine. The bottom line of these relationships is to fuck more, talk less.
He doesn’t usually put himself with other people for extended periods of time. It feels cumbersome and wrong (and he couldn’t stop dreaming about Taehyung, try as he might). But Namjoon was different. When he had first seen him in that bar wearing his broken heart on his sleeve and drinking too much, he hadn’t hesitated to reach out.
Two broken people with the same vice. A recipe for something fractured, yet somehow comforting. A recipe for counterfeit love.
While Namjoon is showering Jimin takes a moment to imagine Taehyung right now, hurrying home after an all-nighter on university campus. He’ll most likely be wearing that green dress-shirt he ironed yesterday afternoon, or perhaps that loose white t-shirt he forgot in the gym lockers three nights ago. He probably hasn’t eaten anything since last night’s take-out Biryani, so either he’ll eat his favorite cereal when he arrives home or he’ll text Jimin asking-
His phone pings softly. His hand flies out to grab it instantaneously.
Taetae: Im at that Japanese takeaway place you want anything?
Naturally. He frightens himself with how well he knows Taehyung, how they’ve let their lives mesh together in an irrevocable fashion. It’s dangerous. He knows he’s shooting himself in the foot but he can’t let go.
He can't let go.
He can't let go.
--
“When would you like to meet next?”
“Soon enough. I’ll text you.”
“Right”
Namjoon pauses at the door where he turns to fix Jimin in a steady gaze, fully clothed in a pair of ripped jeans and an oversized shirt. He looks the picture of calm adulthood.
“When’s the birthday again?”
“Exactly five months away now”
He hates himself for how automatically the answer comes. He can’t deny that his mind has been stuck on Taehyung’s coming of age for months, no, years now.
“Jimin- you know that you can come to mine. Whenever you need to.”
Jimin smiles sadly. He imagines living in Namjoon’s apartment, the very one he shared with Seokjin for years. Namjoon is just trying to fill the space. He can’t handle going home to a cold house, cold lights, eating by himself, sleeping by himself, waking up by himself. When Seokjin disappeared with a farewell in the form of a note, hurried writing slanting “don’t look for me” Namjoon had remained in that apartment for three weeks on end.
And even now, he stays grounded to it. Grounded to the pain, the memory, and the faintest hope that one day there would be a knock on the door and love would walk back into his life.
“Joonie- you know I can’t do that”
He doesn’t apply the nickname too liberally but in moments like this it only seems right. Namjoon is curling back in to that dark place and he retracts at an alarming pace; a tidal wave.
“Right. I get it. See you around”
And with that, he leaves.
--
Taehyung arrives soon after. He’s flushed rose gold from exertion and stuffing bags of takeaway beneath his armpits. He wrestles the food onto the kitchen table, an awful shabby thing they found in the tip when they were sixteen years old. They hadn’t had much then, save one another. It had started with a few words, a confession.
“My dad hits me sometimes. And he hits my sister real bad. I don’t know what happens when she leaves.”
“You should move out too”
“I can’t afford it. Not for a few more years.”
So they had moved out together. His parents had been furious; threatened him with disownment, refused to lend him money, cried, screamed, anything. But he had gone with Taehyung. They had scavenged what little they had, sold it off, and moved in to the most modest of share homes. It had been hell. They were just kids, and the world had been so cruel. They had almost given up on life, more times than they’d cared to imagine.
They’d pulled through, but barely.
It was only in the last year that things had really took a turn for the better. Jimin had published his first novella; anonymously. He hadn’t expected anything from it but the royalties were enough to afford them a better living, a better apartment and a quality life. Things were finally alright, to the extent that they didn't need government handouts and four jobs between them anymore.
It hadn’t really come around, the whole soulmate stuff. It was uncommon. Only 18% of people woke up on their coming of age day, name of their soulmate permanently etched on some part of their body. Sometimes, that soulmate was dead. Or missing, presumed dead. More often than not, you’d never find the bastard.
It was so incredibly rare to find that person. So intermittent for the loose ends of fate to actually tie together to form a cohesive knot that Jimin hadn’t given it a second thought.
But Taehyung couldn’t get enough of it. He yearned for it. Dreamt of it. Lived it, breathed it. He was so adamant that somebody had been created for him and him only that he searched for it ceaselessly.
This morning is just the aftermath of another one of those nights. Taehyung in that tired dress shirt, tired face, disappointment etched deep in the curves of his faces. Jimin can guess his actions last night; combing through faces, crowds, desperately searching for the one. Failed date followed by failed date. This one had lasted a few nights. Taehyung had spoken animatedly about her lips, and the way her hair curled around his fingers in bed.
“Yeah, no.”
He doesn’t even have to ask what Taehyung’s denying.
“What was it this time?”
“She speaks too cruelly about her family. She frightens me with her hatred. I can only handle her in small dosages so it isn’t right.”
“You want to eat and talk about it?”
“Yes, please. Fuck.”
So they sit at their kitchen table, draw up two identical chairs and shovel takeaway into their tired mouths. Jimin tries to concentrate on what Taehyung’s telling him about this girl, who he was so convinced was the answer to his question. Instead, he dwells on how Taehyung’s knuckles tighten around his chopsticks and the way he must have looked in bed last night when he told her they couldn’t see each other anymore.
It hurts, in a gentle sort of way.
When Taehyung is happy, he is mostly happy. When Taehyung is sad, he is devastated.
Jimin swings in time to Taehyung’s emotions; a pendulum of feeling.
Back and forth, back and forth.
--
Taehyung departs to university and Jimin farewells him for what must be the few hundredth time, waving his hand clumsily at Taehyung’s retreating figure through the cheap window panes. As if by magic Taehyung senses his presence and turns back to cast his eyes on Jimin, waving back with equal vigor.
His heart cries again, stirring feebly. It’s a familiar ache.
With Taehyung gone, the apartment seems to quadruple in size. The clock ticks are deafening and the fridge hums loud as thunder. Some days it gradually drives him mad and he finds himself counting seconds and the slow arcs the ceiling fan makes as it spins lazily.
The first few months of freedom; of sleep-ins and staggered shifts and no-school had been heavenly. He threw around the word gap-year a lot as a sort of excuse, a default answer to scalding questions and quick judgements. In truth, he had been lost. One day during college he had woken up feeling awful tired. And not the kind of tired that could be cured with a good sleep and caffeine pills; more the tired which made him want to fade into obscurity and slip away unnoticed into nothingness.
Taehyung had refused to let him. He had pulled him up by the collars and screamed at him to get up, get up, get up. And over time, he had slowly, at an excruciatingly slow pace, had gotten back up.
During the recovery period he had written. He had taken every hard and terrible and dark thought lurking in the sinews of his heart and flushed it out onto A4 paper, bound it, and sent it away to anybody who might have cared.
Most didn’t.
And then somebody did. And when they promised to publish his story by the end of the month they had asked him if he wanted to dedicate the thing to anyone. Taehyung, his mind had screamed, but instead he found himself asking for his name to be drawn from the cover.
Not telling Taehyung was his only regret as the novel climbed up the charts, found itself featured in magazines and newspapers and TV shows. And many weeks later when he had accidentally sat next to a college girl reading his book on a subway train, he had almost cried from happiness.
In essence, he had made it.
Jimin cleans the apartment, cooks dinner and packs it into plastic containers to freeze. July is an odd month weather-wise, the air muggy but still devoid of the scorching heat that will present itself within the next few weeks. His skin prickles with light sweat, and the rain comes often but not often enough. The laundry never dries.
The phone rings at 1:36PM. He has scrubbed the kitchen counter clean and is texting Taehyung about music, poetry, some dumb, arty shit.
Incoming call: mingsugagenius jjang jjang man bboongbboong
Right on time.
--
At only two years older than him Yoongi is sullen and too quiet for his own good. Jungkook, is not. That the two could be soulmates is one of the most wonderfully confusing things in the world and yet, somehow they click and run smooth as anything. It’s gross but endearing.
Fifteen seconds through the door and Jungkook has Jimin pressed into his side, caught in the most brutal headlock of his life. He’d promised to take the kid out for lamb skewers and had flaked on him at least three times, mostly for Taehyung-related reasons. Yoongi chuckles lowly and Jimin smacks Jungkook’s ridiculously large bicep, signaling his surrender.
“So, what have you been up to?”
“Writing. And I stay at home less. I barista at this local place as well, like four times a week.”
“How’s the gap year going?”
“It’s alright. I don’t honestly feel like going back to school ever again though”
At this, Jungkook furrows his brow. He’s curiously study-oriented the kid; he really throws himself into music theory and exams. They’ve argued ceaselessly about this. Jimin thinks art is gained not learnt, while Jungkook insists firmly that a steady foundation of knowledge is essential for the perfection of one’s craft. Yoongi smokes a lot and listens solemnly to their debates.
Stupidly they play monopoly. Of course, they bicker. Another headlock, and Jimin is left wheezing for air. He retreats obediently to jail but reduces Jungkook to tears when he wins with a dynamic comeback. The air outside has turned yellow and the sun sets gently on the horizon.
With a loud clack, the door falls open. Taehyung is achingly good in sandals and chino shorts, his bag slung over his stooped shoulders. His face lights up like the sun.
“Jungkook-ah, Hyung. You should have told me you were coming”
“Tae, it’s so good to see you.”
And he means it. Yoongi is reserved with affection but he doesn’t hesitate to leap up and pull Taehyung into a bear hug. Jimin traces the thick outline of the name Jeon Jungkook on the back of his thin upper arm.
“How is the child rearing going, Taehyung?”
Taehyung laughs, a deep, ochre sound. Jimin smiles.
“Hardly child-rearing, hyung. It’s tricky. There’s a lot more to being a primary school teacher than I thought. And I don’t get to actually go on placement until what, next year?”
“Imagine that. Mr. Kim. You would be so fucking excellent”
Taehyung is practically bursting with pride. Praise means a lot, especially coming from Yoongi. Jimin knows the feeling. Jungkook is smiling warmly too. There is plenty of love here, in this cheap-ass kitchenette. They really do love each other a lot. He’s constantly prioritized quality over quantity with his friendships and it’s paid off.
They end up drinking late into the night and Jimin hauls Taehyung into his bed, rolling him between the sheets.
Jimin sees the other two out; helping Jungkook carry the snoring Yoongi to their car parked outside the apartment. Jungkook places Yoongi carefully, carefully into the front seat, as if he is made of glass and infinitely fragile. He’s fucking smitten and it’s a beautiful contrast to his usual cocky, shitty self.
“So, how’s living with Taehyung?”
“It has its moments.”
They don’t talk often about Jimin’s one-sided infatuation with Kim Taehyung, and it's better kept that way. So this is a bit of a deviation from the norm, but he’s warm with liquor and sobering up slowly enough to have this conversation.
“Jiminie”
“It’s hyung to you, brat”
“Hyung”
Oh. A serious talk then.
“When are you going to stop living with Taehyung?”
“I-“
“Hyung, Taehyung will never stop searching for his soulmate. And what if he has one? What if he moves out on you and goes to her? What if she comes to him? What are you going to do? It’s going to break your heart”
(As if it hasn’t already)
“Jungkook, I-“
He’s surprised (and Jungkook is horrified) when he chokes up and the tears spill, hot and sticky against his warm cheeks. Jungkook erupts into a chorus of no no no no no, and hesitates for a second before pulling Jimin into a tight, warm embrace. Jimin gives himself willingly to Jungkook’s warm chest, feeling the way his arm muscles tighten around his back. They stay like that for what seems like an eternity, Jimin sobbing into the soft fabric of Jungkook’s t-shirt and Jungkook stroking his hair awkwardly but steadily, mutterings of don’t cry and I’m sorry escaping his mouth.
“I’m sorry”
“No I am”
“I didn’t mean to upset you. I just- I’m so worried about you. We both are.”
“I know. I’m trying to work things out. Just- just give me a little more time.”
“You know you can come to ours whenever you need?”
The phrase is familiar, but his answer will never change. Taehyung may be pain, but without Taehyung- he is nothing.
When he crawls into bed a few minutes later he finds an obtrusion (but not an unwelcome one) nestled between his pillows. Taehyung has grown to be gangly and tall and takes up more space then he ought to. Jimin had tentatively suggested a queen-sized bed all those years ago (to conserve money, nothing else, nothing else) but Taehyung had insisted on single beds. A redundant cost now since most nights he crawls into Jimin’s bed to crush him between his body and the wall, refusing to leave despite Jimin’s half-hearted protest.
He sighs and slugs into his bed, too tired for argument. Fucking Taehyung. The lovely little bitch. He flinches when Taehyung rolls over quite suddenly and he flounders for a second, the sudden shift rolling him off the edge of the mattress. Taehyung catches him by placing a wide palm firmly on the small of his back and pulling him back in. In the dark his heart threatens to beat out of his chest. Especially when Taehyung curls his fingers into a fist, bunching Jimin’s shirt into it.
“You crying?”
He’s drunk. He smells sickeningly sweet, of Kahlua and Jack on ice. But there is unmistakably caring in his voice and Jimin can’t find it in his heart to tell him to shut up and go back to sleep.
“How can you tell?”
“Your breathing. Comes out snuffly after a cry”
“Oh.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
“No.”
“Okay. Good night.”
“Good night”
And just like that, his body slackens and he falls away. The pace of his breathing changes and Jimin realizes that Taehyung had probably been waiting exhausted and drunk, for Jimin to return to the room before he slept. He loves him. He really loves Taehyung. Even if it means nothing to Taehyung, the touches, the hushed whispers, the shared years, it meant everything to him.
All the hurt had been worth it. Because it was all for the sake of Taehyung.
--
When Jimin returns home after a long shift down-trodden and exhausted, he’s greeted by a nervous Taehyung, freshly showered. It’s uncommon for Taehyung to be home this early, and even more uncommon for him to be going out at 5PM. He doesn’t think much of it until he catches Taehyung styling his hair in their bathroom mirror, employing hair gel to sweep back his already-immaculate locks.
The bad feeling settles in his gut like sour wine. When Taehyung disappears into the closet for half an hour to decide on an outfit, the bad feeling intensifies until it almost overwhelms him, threatening to drown him entirely.
“How do I look?”
Jimin readies himself for how amazing Taehyung looks when he really tries, but he could never be ready for how magnificent he looks now. His collarbones are bared, enough to be provocative but not in an obvious fashion. His cream-colored shorts almost match his hair and he is wearing a few, simple rings. Understated elegance at its finest. He is a vision to behold.
Jimin tries to cough up the right words. He has several practiced phrases he uses for such occasions but they escape him in his time of need.
“You look so handsome Tae. Hope you have a good time”
Cue heartbreak.
So when Taehyung leaves after nervously assuring that this girl might really be it, Jimin reaches for his mobile and punches in the number, because he needs this or he won’t sleep tonight.
--
It’s been a little while but Namjoon is still steady with his hands and desperate to please. Jimin drags him into the kiss before they even greet one another at the door. It's less lips more tongue, but Namjoon responds accordingly. He knows how it gets. He knows how it feels, like the loneliness and ache could staple you to the darkness and any distraction is welcome.
“Please Namjoon- I-”
“Shhh, Jiminnie don’t rush-“
But Jimin yanks Namjoon down onto the sofa, on top of him. Their hips slot together and he ruts up, desperate for some sort of friction. He whines, high-pitched and hoarse at the contact, thrilled by the half-hard heat in Namjoon’s loose shorts. He doesn’t hesitate to run his hand down Namjoon’s abdomen, dip his hands into his boxers. He grips his erection tightly, earning a drawn out gasp from the elder struggling out of his shirt while he hastily unclothes Jimin.
He kneads his own cock a few times for good measure, making sure Namjoon is fully hard before running his thumb carefully across the slit, reaching his left hand to stroke up and down the length.
Namjoon looks good like this, panting and surprised by the speed of things, but so ready for the pleasure. Jimin tries not to imagine the other things. Like how Namjoon must have kissed Jin in bed, and how badly he must’ve loved the sight of him, fucked out and lying ready before him.
(And fuck, the way Taehyung’s skin looks in the moonlight. How he must sound with somebody wrapped around his cock. He tries not to let his mind wonder.)
Just now, it’s the two of them. Two awfully lost, sad people trying their hardest to bring warmth to one another’s beds.
“Namjoon, fuck me like you mean it.” He pants.
“Like you’ve never done before.”
And he watches as the air shifts between them and Namjoon growls, slamming Jimin down with his two hands, scissoring two fingers into him. Jimin cries out, stomach tensing as Namjoon prods at his prostate while dipping down to lick at the tip of his leaking cock.
Minutes later, Jimin is begging for it, to be filled and fucked until he forgets his own name and Namjoon is too happy to comply.
And when he’s left with bruises and a shaky hip, Namjoon bathes him and carries him to bed like a child. But even after Namjoon has fallen asleep, his shoulders heaving softly under the nightlight, Jimin can’t stop looking over to Taehyung’s bed against the far wall, feeling the emptiness like a missing limb and hoping, dreaming that Taehyung will come home soon.
--
“Shit, you gotta go gotta go”
“Fuck fuck fuck”
The two have overslept and Taehyung has already sent his good morning text meaning he’ll be home any second, he may even be pattering up the stairwell as they speak. The result is a commotion, a frantic search for shorts, t-shirts, articles of clothing scattered throughout the apartment like the aftermath of some storm. Jimin can’t even bring himself to feel bad as he hurls Namjoon out of the apartment with a promise to deliver his bag and phone charger on a later date.
Sure enough Taehyung returns home not ten minutes after. He looks slightly disheveled but as good as anyone can look after a long night out. He regards Jimin with faint curiosity, the untucked shirt, the messy hair. His face sets in an indescribable expression. But he doesn’t make any comments.
“Jimin-ah. Guess who found themselves a girlfriend?”
And so it goes.
The enormity of the task is daunting. Pretending he’s happy for Taehyung, acting like it doesn’t matter when he’s breaking inside. It only gets worse with time; the absent nights, the unanswered texts, the sound of Taehyung laughing down the phone to her. But he never brings her home. Perhaps out of respect for Jimin, but they’re never even introduced. It’s interesting like that. Their lives are so intimately melded, but they are still able to keep secrets.
He spends too much time with Namjoon. Always doing the same thing. Crying over the same things.
--
Despite everything, Taehyung still asks and Jimin still agrees to their usual summer vacation, a two week trip back to either one of their home towns. This year they return to Taehyung’s grandparent’s house, to strawberry fields and lush foliage.
They take the bus, because hey, money is tight. It’s sweltering hot in the rickety vehicle and their thighs are pressed together on the dusty bus seat. The only other occupant inside the bus is an old woman, her white hair pulled up into a neat bun. She fans herself with precise, slow motions. The marking of her soulmate’s name is on the back of her neck but an ugly scar tears across it, concealing the Hangul. Jimin wonders if she had maimed herself or it had been done to her, and he can't be sure if he would like to know the answer.
“Jimin-ah, it’s hot”
Taehyung is pretty as ever, eyes thin from the heat and panting quietly. He glows a dark orange in the interior of the dusty bus. Sweat shines above those distractingly plump lips.
“Tae you make it hotter by saying that”
“Are you mad at me?”
Time stops. It twists into something stagnant and Jimin is lost in the hold of Taehyung’s amber gaze.
“I could never”
His heart slips out before his mind can stop him, but Taehyung is happy enough. He shifts impossibly closer and cups his larger palm over Jimin’s small, ringed hand. He fiddles with the knuckles and presses into Jimin’s wrist.
“Whatever it is, I hope you get through it.”
Ah, but this is paradoxical. Because the only way to cure himself is to get through Taehyung, but Taehyung won’t yield, won’t yield. And Jimin is hopelessly stuck on him.
--
“Minnie”
Taehyung’s grandmother greets him like a long-lost son and Taehyung makes a sound of indignation at the back of his throat. She’s a strong woman, weathered and old. She’s a venerable mistress, and runs the farm with more finesse than any man could. Jimin inhales her scent as he’s pulled in for a hug, the scent of summer and creek water and something else sweet.
“Ah Taehyung. And you’re here too”
There’s laughter at her careless tone, but genuine love in the way she pats his cheek, stroking his hair up to see his face clearer. She had raised him for many years before he was forced away by his father, and she was more a mother to Taehyung than anyone ever was.
At night they sleep in the massive guest room, on scratchy tatami mats and fluffy down. They hang a mosquito net over themselves and listen to the crickets chirp in the garden. The city is loud but the country is deafening. The rustling, the tweep tweep of some unnamable insect, and the gentle breeze gusting through the fields makes it difficult to sleep. But all it takes is the way Taehyung stares at the moon with dark eyes opened wide to lull him into a sleep, deeper and better than any he’s had in the past few months.
They Skype call Jungkook and Yoongi most mornings and then help Taehyung’s grandmother with housekeeping tasks. Often, they harvest strawberries. Taehyung loses weight in a healthy way, and Jimin falls harder in love with the sun-kissed boy laughing at him with crimson hands.
After lunch, Jimin writes and Taehyung asks to read, only to be refused. They go on strolls, to the river or the mountains, kicking up stray stones from the rough dirt path weaving between endless rice fields. They’ve been here several times before. They revisit the same places, the cedar trees and the hidden creek.
It really feels like they’re the only people in the world. There’s the sun, the blinding green and Taehyung. Jimin couldn’t be happier.
--
One day, towards the end of their holiday they climb a mountain. By accident, mostly. Taehyung insists that the summit is close but it’s not, and it turns out to be an hour long trek leaving them heaving, leg muscles screaming from overuse.
But it’s all worth it.
They end up in a small field, white flowers blowing like feathers in the wind. The sun is so bright and the sky seems close, like they can touch it if only they reach out a hand. From high up they can see the way the fields snake through the mountains like a moss-green river, and they can faintly make out the train weaving through like a serpent. Taehyung laughs, a high sound of jubilation and falls onto his back into the endless flowers.
Jimin feels a strange sense of Déjà vu, an ache in his heart which makes him clutch at his chest gently. It’s not an unpleasant feeling-more wistful. Like he’s missing something that used to be his.
“Minnie come lie with me”
And so he does. It’s warm and dry down there on the ground and he feels utterly cleansed, and at peace.
“Do you remember? We came here when we were kids.”
“Did we?”
“How can you not remember?”
He misses the heavy change in tone, like a cloud covering the sun. He’s too focused on closing his eyes and soaking up the sun to realize when Taehyung shifts, rolling over to rest on top of him.
His eyes snap open.
Oh.
Taehyung seems very solid and real like this, breathing gently against Jimin with his elbow propping him up so their noses almost touch. He has come to rest between Jimin’s legs, their crotches near-aligned and Jimin prays desperately that his boner won’t make a guest appearance at the worst possible timing. He can feel the way Taehyung’s diaphragm expands slightly when he moves and there is nothing platonic about this positioning.
“Tae-“
His words are stolen from his mouth by Taehyung’s thumb, which swipes carefully across his lower lip.
Jimin widens his eyes.
Taehyung’s hand ventures to cup Jimin’s face in one of the most intimate, tender actions of affection he’s ever displayed.
“Tae, what are you doing”
Taehyung freezes, as if awaking from a trance. His hand is trembling as badly as Jimin’s voice.
“Tae, get off of me”
It takes every part of him to say those words, and he waits until Taehyung silently removes himself and disappears with a rustle in to the greenery before he shatters.
When he returns home two hours later, Taehyung is nowhere to be seen. He locks himself in the bathroom and masturbates to the memory of Taehyung’s eyes, dark and hungry looking into his. He cleans himself off and cries, standing beneath the shower to rinse himself of the disappointment, the confusion.
When Taehyung slips into the room past midnight he pretends not to hear, and when Taehyung lets out a small noise which forebodes tears, he pretends to sleep.
--
“Hoseokie is coming over tonight, for dinner”
The line is delivered cautiously, almost as an ice-breaker. Taehyung hasn’t spoken to Jimin in a while and Jimin has been too afraid. Taehyung’s grandmother can sense that something is off and she’s cast a few lines of help which neither of them have bothered to take.
Hoseok. Taehyung’s older cousin had posed as a sort of brother-figure for Jimin in their youth, helping him learn the ropes of farming, introducing the country-side to him. He was a watermelon farmer, strong and steady in his ways.
Jimin looked forward to seeing him. There wasn’t much else to look forward too, with Taehyung silent like this.
Hoseok arrives with watermelons and a radiant smile. His wife is a pretty little thing, timid but clever. His child is the most boisterous, bouncing two-year old Jimin has ever seen. Hoseok lifts Jimin up into the air and spins him around as if he’s still the same little boy, innocent and without a care in the world. In the corner of his spinning periphery Jimin can see Taehyung laughing, head thrown back. He feels secretly relieved.
They drink and eat heartily, the kitchen bustling with life. Taehyung and Jimin skirt around one another but try their hardest to be accommodating and natural in front of their guests. Taehyung softens in front of children, and he seems enamoured by Hoseok’s little family. He doesn't stop laughing. Jimin wonders if one day it’ll be him, bouncing his child on his knee and kissing his wife quickly between stories of family fishing trips and daycare.
Later on, when the night is still young and Taehyung convinces Hoseok’s wife to join him and his grandmother in a game of Mahjong, Jimin sits on the porch alone beer turning warm in his clenched hand. He can’t stop thinking about Taehyung having a family in the future, discovering his soul mate and having kids- where will Jimin fit into that equation?
“Minnie”
“Hobi-hyung”
Hoseok has grown older. He carries himself like a man, a father. At only two years older than Jimin he has it sorted out; the job, the family, the mortgage. It’s perhaps not the life he imagined, but it’s a good life regardless.
“How are things?”
“Not, too great actually.”
He was always honest with Hobi. He had a way of seeing through lies like water.
“I see Taehyung is still hung up on the whole soulmate thing.”
Jimin chuckles, a tired sound.
“Yeah he is. He’s been dating this girl for about two months. He thinks she’s the one. Really excited about it.”
“But are you?”
He feels tiny under Hoseok’s tense gaze and he can’t help but shake his head. They sip in silence for some time, listening to the ongoing sounds of festivities and laughter from within the house. There are no lights in the fields, only pure black. It’s like looking out to the ocean.
“You turn nineteen in a month, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Jimin, I meant to tell you this a while ago, when I heard you moved in with Taehyung. The soulmate thing, it’s important but not the most important thing.”
“Okay.”
“My soulmate is this chick called Eunbi.”
He points at his ankle. Surely enough, the name is etched small and obscure on his calf. It’s not his wife’s name. He gestures towards the living room with his beer bottle before taking another swig.
“I met her in high school. I was so convinced she was my soulmate- so convinced that when we found out about the kid, we decided to keep it. And then come my 19th birthday. And shit, she’s not my soulmate. And when she turns nineteen, no name. She has no soulmate. Either that, or he’s dead.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
It’s blurted out, and Jimin curses himself for being insensitive. Hoseok must have tied himself into knots over his predicament. He must have hated himself, questioned himself, questioned her, and he had finally come to this conclusion.
“No. I’m not even going to search for my soulmate. I don’t care. Mi-na, she’s the one for me. She makes me happy and we make it work. And she’s such a brilliant mother. My family makes me the happiest man in the world.”
She turns back now, eyeing the two from her place by the table as if reaffirming that Hoseok is still there. He smiles and gives a small wave and she returns it, face breaking into a grin.
“I’m going to get the name lasered off after the harvest. My soulmate might be out there, but I don’t need her. I need my wife.”
Mi-na is beckoning now, patting the seat next to her and motioning at Hobi. He complies, returning the house after giving Jimin a reassuring squeeze on the arm. Jimin watches as he picks up his son, letting him climb up his body and onto his shoulders. Laughter chimes through the air. Jimin wishes for a love as steadfast and certain as Hoseok’s. Even if fate does happen to tug Hoseok and his soulmate together one day, he’s positive that Hoseok will battle against the current to return to her. In the same way that even after Jimin’s soulmate is revealed, he will continue to love, love, love Taehyung with every part of him; even the part that belongs with somebody else.
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