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taehyung killed himself on a monday.
he remembers it well because who doesn't remember the first time they seriously sit down to consider taking their own life? but also because statistics say suicides are more common on mondays and taehyung had a long debate with himself on whether or not he should feed into the statistic.
if he had known that he'd end up in a worse version of the world, he would have just gone on living because there were shit holes and then there was the felo-de-se afterworld, the worst of them all.
"i miss being alive," taehyung had said shortly after he adjusted to the after life. "i never thought i would say that."
his roommate, hoseok, a tall and exceedingly attractive man with shaggy black hair (something he always complained about because "if i had known i would end up here, i would have at least dyed it."), had responded with a shrug. "everyone here does. this place is just like earth. only worse."
taehyung sighed heavily, his eyes still on the ceiling, on the water stain. "at this point i'm even starting to miss the things i hated."
"you'll get used to it."
taehyung didn't think he could. he didn't think it was possible. he killed himself but he ended up in a world full of other people who offed themselves. it was the worst punishment, he thought. making people who so clearly wanted to die live.
but adjusting to post suicide life was easier than he thought. he acclimated by moving in with hoseok (the first person he met when he landed here), reading up on most of the books he never got around to, and getting a job at a bar where an embarrassingly high amount of people actively avoid.
(hoseok had explained to him "there's just something depressing about that bar."
taehyung gawked. "well, what the hell are people gonna do if they go? kill themselves?")
when taehyung met hoseok, he was confused and inebriated, high off the appeal of nonexistence (and maybe still a little buzzed from the full bottle of pills he drowned down to get here). so maybe the fact that hoseok looked like a fallen angel was just a trick of the mind because, after living with the guy for a decent amount of time, he's discovered that he's the closest thing to a troll.
hoseok had lived a nice life on earth.
well "nice" according to societal standards. he was idyllic. he had gotten high marks all throughout his educational career and had graduated high school as valedictorian. he'd played on the basketball team, the volleyball team, and even on the swim team. he'd had a job at a local restaurant and had a habit of giving away free food to the homeless population.
to everyone, he was the ideal citizen. and he was handsome, the perfect cherry on top of the sundae that was his life.
but, of course, not everything is as it seems.
hoseok's parents were strict, demeaning, and wanted nothing less than perfection from him. the great marks throughout his entire educational career hadn't been due to personal eviction but due to his mother's lectures and scars that would tear through his skin from his father's belt whenever he got anything lower than A+.
he aced the college entrance exam, got into seoul's top university, and was on his way to becoming the pupil his parents wanted so desperately. but college, as it is for everyone, was hard. juggling work, studies, and sports became a game of death.
it ended when his professor gave him an 89% for an essay he absolutely slaved over for weeks and hoseok took a swan dive off the jamsu bridge.
"why jamsu?" taehyung asked after hoseok had relayed his story.
hoseok shrugged. "i guess i wanted to see one last beautiful thing. i dunno."
after he died, hoseok ended up here where most suicides end and found that for the first time, he could do something he enjoyed: dancing. he took the first job he could which ended up being a stripper in a nightclub. sure it wasn't exactly professional dancing but the crowd loved him for his skills as much as they loved him for his body. for the first time, he could live -- and taehyung uses that word lightly -- without fear. but there was still a part of him that was affected by the life he led.
it's the part of him that doesn't read books, the part of him that avoids any and everything that his parents wanted him to be. the part of him that's decked out in tattoos and piercings, a great deviation from what his parents made of him. the part of him that still flinches when he doesn't get something right.
"the music here sucks," taehyung quips, taking a large gulp of his beer because there's no such thing as intoxication in this inferno. taehyung might have considered that a perk but he's still the type of person who likes to drown out his feelings with alcohol. so not intoxication is yet another sucky thing about this place.
hoseok's eyes stay on the stage, on one of the performers, one of the club's favorites. he's nodding his head along to the song and only tears his eyes away for a split second to glance at taehyung. "then why are you bobbing your head?"
"i'm drunk."
hoseok scoffs but his eyes are light with the closest thing to happiness, his attention taken by the center stage again. taehyung turns his attention to the person up there, under the pale blue spotlight, the person moving their body along to the vocals of the song as opposed to the bass line.
there's a reason why the performer is everyone's favorite. it's because he moves fluidly, like he knows his body well, like he knows what he's doing. but he possesses the sort of melancholia that makes a person question everything about what they know.
it's in his glimmering doe eyes, his plush lips (the way they're always in a small pout), and his beauty. he's what people mean when they say it hurts to be beautiful.
his name was jin.
"god," taehyung drawls. "he's good tonight."
"he's good every night," hoseok says, his voice just as distracted, just as hypnotized as taehyung's.
jin's body sways, it doesn't push. he's like the wind, the way it's gentle but chilling in every way possible. he's overwhelming, too much and too little at the same time. and hoseok looks at him like he's just enough, just right.
taehyung first met jin would hoseok dragged him to the club to see if he could get get a job.
("i know it's silly," hoseok said in a rush to explain as he practically ran to the bar. "we're dead, this isn't even earth but it still adheres to the rules of capitalism.")
immediately hoseok took him to the boss, a large woman with kind eyes and a mischievous smile who sized taehyung up before saying he could dance if he wanted to.
"i don't want to dance," taehyung said gruffly. "you got anything less trashy available?"
right after he said that, like clockwork, jin appeared in front of him and he was struck silent. breathless, panicked, the kind of reaction most people have when they're faced with something so ethereally beautiful.
"you think i'm trashy?" he'd asked, a small knowing expression on his face.
it ended with taehyung a stuttering mess and with the entire bar glaring at him because jin was the definition of class, the picture of it. if hoseok had an idyllic life, seokjin had an idyllic spirit.
the first time taehyung had seen jin step up on stage and perform to a song that didn't quite fit, a song too slow and too peaceful for an act so crude, he'd been mesmerized.
everyone was.
because he was that song that was too peaceful and too pure for the seedy act that was the world.
seokjin had grown up in an orphanage.
he'd been abandoned as a baby and never knew his real family, never really found a family of his own. the matriarch of the orphanage wasn't abusive but she was all business and no nonsense, the kind of person that would only smile if it meant a stimulation in sales.
when he was seven years old, he was adopted by some wealthy classics afficianado who essentially wanted to breed talent. he'd put seokjin into ballet where the boy learned to be what was today, where he learned to be graceful and gentle but intense.
("he wanted me to be the best there was," seokjin lulled under the blue lights of the club, his finger circling the rim of his shot glass and his eyes far away.
"were you?"
jin nodded, his eyes fluttering shut. "definitely.")
jin was essentially a child prodigy. not one of the ones that ended up touring the world, interviewed by time magazine, and put on cereal boxes. but he was a small town hero of sorts. for a very brief time.
then time passed, he got older, and the rich man got bored.
("bored?" taehyung straightened up. "why--"
"he liked me when i was little," seokjin said in a voice too low to even be a whisper.
and then taehyung knew just what jin had meant when he said the guy never failed to tuck him into bed every night without fail.
"what happened?"
jin shrugged. "i had to live. so i did what he taught me.")
he fucked.
most of the people who frequented the bar were the kind of people who no one noticed in the real world. most of them were older, forgotten by their family, and left to live when they didn't want to.
having been left in this world, all they had to do, all they were interested in doing was having a good drink and listening to bad jazz.
"another one for you, sir?"
taehyung asks one of the commoners who's pretty close to passing out on the bar (but since there's no inebriation, it's most likely due to being old and not the shitty beer they serve.
the man nods and taehyung dutifully pours another drink. as he does so, he daydreams about how life was above the surface and the life he used to have. and maybe he wonders if it was worth trashing.
("why did you kill yourself?" hoseok asked while they were marathoning the harry potter serious because hoseok's parents had managed to rob him of that as well. "you never mentioned it."
taehyung hummed, watching closely because his favorite line in this entire movie was coming up. "i wanted to."
"that's all?" hoseok urges after a prolonged silence.
"that was reason enough.")
taehyung doesn't like telling people why he offed himself because, more often than not, people like him get called stupid. even when he was alive and the person who killed themselves was a fictional character in a greek tragedy, they were deemed stupid.
because how cliche and needy do you need to be to kill yourself over love?
"i love you," taehyung had said as he rocked into the person below him, his sun, his sky, his earth, his everything. his body was alight with the kind of fire that burned bright and never simmered. his entire being ached with fervor, enraptured by pleasure.
she had moaned, gripping his shoulders, pulling him closer but she didn't respond.
she never did.
"you know the one thing i don't like about this place?"
taehyung looks up from his proust book (the french translated version because he has become enlightened since death) and sees hoseok standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, the door wide open. "that we still have bowel movements?"
"no," hoseok sighed and taehyung peered closer to see the older pressing his index fingers to either corner of his mouth and lifting it up. "we can't smile here."
putting the book down on his lap, taehyung raises an eyebrow. "what?"
"you never noticed?" hoseok takes that as a cue to come out, kneel down in front of taehyung's place on the couch, and show him. "see? nothing. try to smile."
taehyung does try it a few times and no matter how hard he tries, it doesn't work. the smile doesn't stay up. "that's seriously the worst part for you?"
"i used to smile all the time when i was alive."
taehyung scoffs. "because you were so happy, right?"
"the day you can tell me why you offed yourself is the day you can pick on my life choices all you want," hoseok rises and leaves the room. "but until then, fuck off."
after being stuck living, not having sex has got to be among taehyung's list of things to hate about being here. it wasn't that he couldn't have sex, he totally could. but there was no one here that he even wanted and if there was someone he wanted, they didn't want him because, well, he's a loser.
jin had offered a few months after they met but by that time, taehyung had known jin's story like the back of his hand and couldn't ever think to force him into something like that.
"you wouldn't be forcing me," seokjin says again for the millionth time since however long ago it was. "i'm offering because you're my friend."
jin nods toward the stage where hoseok is dancing along to some hard hitting hip hop beat, moves choreographed to perfection, entertaining and sexy at the same time. "i do the same for hoseok sometimes."
taehyung blinks. "are you serious?"
"we both need it," jin shrugs, his finger circling the rim of his shot glass. "it's the only comforting thing here sometimes."
taehyung watches jin's hands, his fingers, watches the way he moves like he knows he's being watched. he sees the way he hunches over in his chair, arms barred up as if to block himself from the world. "i'm okay."
"you're not though," jin turns to him and even though it's pretty dark inside, taehyung can tell his eyes are pinning him. "if you were, you'd be somewhere else."
"are you saying once we find happiness here we can transcend to a better world?"
jin giggles, the corners of his mouth still turned down. "no. i've been here for a while, there's nothing but this. and the sucky part is that there's no death to look forward to."
"tell me about it, i'd kill myself again but i don't want to end up in a bigger shit hole than this one."
"that's what i mean, taehyung." jin leans closer until his body is pressing into taehyung's side. "you're still in the same state you were in before you killed yourself. you still fantasize about a great nothing, an endless darkness. you probably read all that proust so you can write a really eloquent suicide letter."
taehyung scoffs. "i wouldn't waste my time with a letter this time around."
jin's fingers find their way into taehyung's hair and taehyung lets himself sink deeper into the booth, eyes closing.
"all you need is time."
taehyung, just like he doesn't say anything about the obvious fact that jin and hoseok don't fool around because they need it but because they need each other, doesn't say anything about the fact that he thinks he only needs an end.
the bell that hangs over the entrance of the bar rings, telling of a new customer and taehyung continues wiping down the spilled alcohol and cigarette buds when he tells them they're closed.
the bell doesn't ring again and taehyung looks up tiredly, ready to be stern with them, steer them in the right direction.
but when he looks up, he freezes because there's a beautiful guy his age soaking wet. his heavy breathing, wide eyes and slightly his blue lips give taehyung all the information he needs.
this guy is new.
"uh," his voice shakes. "could you...i don't know where i am."
taehyung looks down from the guy's face to his clothes: a white tank and ripped jeans that drag on the floor. he's barefoot. "what do you remember?"
the guy stills, looks a little like he's been caught doing something forbidden. "i...i was home..."
it's these kind of things that hoseok and jin excel at. they could calm this guy down, get him some warm clothes, some fucking shoes probably, and explain to him that while he did technically succeed at killing himself, he still had to go through the perils of living.
how would they handle this? they'd use gentle words, right? soothing words? they'd ease him to it.
"you're dead," taehyung blurts out. "and this is your eternal punishment. well, the eternal part is questionable actually. but it's definitely a punishment. it's like an inferno disguised as a second chance but don't be fooled. how'd you kill yourself?"
his name was jimin.
and he was immaculate.
even when he was hyperventilating, nearly passing out, even when taehyung had to half drag him to his apartment in the pouring rain, jimin was immaculate. mainly because taehyung felt he was one of the few people that ended up here that absolutely did not deserve to end up here.
"are you okay?" hoseok asks when jimin comes out of his daze, a blanket shrouded around his shoulders.
jimin looks up from his wrist but continues stroking it absently. "i don't know."
hoseok nods sympathetically. "well, i'm hoseok. this is taehyung. this is our place and i hope you'll excuse how shabby it is. did taehyung explain where you are?"
jimin's eyes shift to taehyung who stands awkwardly to the side with his arms crossed. "a punishment?"
"nice," hoseok turns to him and, if he could, there'd be a fake smile to go along with it. "that's only one way to think of it and our taehyung is very morbid. but the best way to think of it is another place. there's heaven, there's hell, there's purgatory, and there's this."
jimin shivers a little, swallows hard. "so i'm dead?"
"that's where it gets a little tricky," hoseok leans forward. "because technically you are but you're also obviously alive. we don't know what to call it. but, technically, you're dead."
"i...i didn't know it would be like this."
"none of us did. but we're here and there's no place else to go. so we make the best of it."
"um," jimin clears his throat. "is...my family? are they?"
"no," hoseok shakes his head. "unless you guys went jonestown together, you're alone down here."
taehyung speaks up for the first time. "welcome to the end of the world."
"you could dance," jin suggests to jimin in that gentle comforting voice he uses often. "if...you're trashy enough, i guess."
"i said i was sorry," taehyung grumbles into his fifth drink. "there's a pizza place that's hiring down the street from the apartment, jimin."
jimin raises his eyebrows. "there's pizza here?"
"it's just like earth," hoseok says again. "only a little less bearable."
"but pizza?"
"it's shitty," taehyung jumps in. "worst pizza ever."
"so you could dance."
taehyung kind of wants to tell jin to shut up but he doesn't because he's not sure why it is that his stomach kind of churns at the thought of jimin dancing.
"at the club, right?"
jin nods. "if you don't mind being stared at all the time."
jimin squeaks. "i do. a little."
hoseok hums deep in thought and taehyung is speaking before he knows what he's going to say.
"you could work at the bar," he suggests.
"i could?"
"yeah," taehyung stutters. "definitely, i mean. we don't get a lot of customers but the owner doesn't really give a shit so..."
and then jimin does something that makes everyone gape, makes everyone gasp, and gawk at him.
he smiles.
taehyung had the question on the tip of his tongue but before he could open his mouth to ask it, jin had squeezed his arm.
later jin would explain that jimin had something that none of them had and that if they pointed it out to him, it could change. and jin, good natured jin, just really wanted somebody in this hell hole to be happy.
so they don't mention it and people do stare when jimin smiles but someone is always there to let them know.
taehyung doesn't say that jimin's smile makes him feel fiery in more than one way. he isn't just shocked at the sight of a smile, not like everyone else is when they look at him. he's overwhelmed.
jimin smiles and taehyung is pressed against the closest wall suffocating but not dying. jimin smiles and taehyung is finding it hard to breathe because his heart is doing backflips. jimin smiles and taehyung thinks he dies a little every time.
hoseok called taehyung's curious nature a chink in his armor. it was the only part of taehyung that seemed to go on with him. he had been happy as a child and he had been curious as a child but happiness is the thing that faded.
so when there's no one in the bar but them, the owner in the back staring down the barrel of a gun and fantasizing about the day it'll actually work, taehyung asks him.
"what's your story?"
jimin tilts his head. "my story?"
"what did you do to get here?"
"oh," jimin's face goes a little pink and he looks down at the floor he's sweeping. "it's not all that interesting."
taehyung's eyes fall to jimin's wrists. "i'll show you mine if you show me yours."
and jimin smiles at him and he's suffocating again.
taehyung makes an array of different drinks, sets out the liquor and the vodka around them as they sit on the floor behind the bar. they're closer than they've ever been in the time they've spent together but it feels natural. like they were supposed to be this close.
taehyung lifts a full shot glass and hands it to jimin. "hometown."
"busan," jimin takes the shot. "parents, a younger brother, no pets. i was not the most popular in school. cliche enough for you?"
taehyung shakes his head slowly, head propped against the cabinet. for a split second he thinks he must be tipsy for once because he feels light.
"i was in love."
his voice is low when he says it but jimin hears him and looks up from his wrists.
taehyung shifts. "i was in love with someone who didn't love me back. and it wasn't her fault at all. it wasn't all her, really. i just...i'm not completely well. i'm not right, you know? i have bad thoughts. lots of them, all the time. they just shoot off and ricochet like a piston of negativity."
jimin leans closer and his warmth makes taehyung shudder.
"she found someone else, someone that she actually loved. and i was happy for her but...i just couldn't breathe. i couldn't do anything but feel this...this big nothing. and i really just wanted to sleep to escape it...i can't remember if i took too many on accident or if that's a lie i told myself."
jimin doesn't say anything but his finger brushes against taehyung's and then it's curled around taehyng's pinkie loose but there.
they sit in silence and taehyung sighs because jimin is just listening. taehyung nudges his shoulder gently.
"okay," jimin starts. "my mother didn't want me and my father thought i was a failure. and they liked to remind me of that as often as they could. sometimes they'd just say it but sometimes they'd use their hands. my brother too. they liked him better than me but i preferred that because i didn't want him to get hurt. anyway, like all things, it got to be too much and i tried to run away but he found me. my dad found me and he...was really angry."
jimin pauses momentarily and he looks up into taehyung's eyes. it's only a second but it feels like a lifetime. "anyway, he locked me in my room. it was the most extreme thing he'd ever done and i was scared of what he would do so. i just...i just took care of it. it's stupid, i know."
he almost misses it but taehyung catches the teardrop that falls onto the front of jimin's shirt.
"i'm sorry," jimin bites his lip and wipes his eyes. "i just...i shouldn't have left him. my brother, i mean. and i have no way of knowing if he's safe. i dunno, maybe it doesn't matter, i was useless to him. to everyone, actually."
taehyung wants to reach out and wipe the tears away, maybe even press his lips to jimin's just to stop the trembling. but he doesn't.
instead he slides his hand down, untangling his finger from jimin's and lifts the other's hand. taehyung brushes his thumb across the front of his wrist. jimin looks a little shy, a little self conscious but he doesn't pull away, not even when taehyung leans forward and presses his lips against the smooth skin. taehyung hears the short quiet gasp jimin makes and he opens his mouth, swipes his tongue across, and kisses it again.
taehyung is caressing jimin's wrist, eyes down. "if i knew you when i was alive, i think i would have stayed."
the and that's not worthless doesn't leave taehyung's mouth but it hangs in between them like the air they need after asphyxiation.
jimin smiles.
they don't have another moment like that, another moment where they are completely boundless in their warmth with each other. jimin doesn't mention it and taehyung doesn't think about it -- or at least he tries hard not to -- but he does notice whenever jimin strokes his wrist now, there's a newfound fondness on his face.
as far as licking near strangers goes, taehyung is pretty inexperienced but he can't even find it in himself to be ashamed of his actions. because even though none of them kept the scars they self inflicted at the time of death, taehyung still felt that he was licking the wound clean.
he wonders how deep jimin cut and whether or not he should do it again.
it's a conversation that they've all had. the equivalent of it in the real world was like sharing your birthday, your sign, or your favorite dicaprio movie. they shared how and why they killed themselves. kinda like the post mortem version of "what are you in for?"
jimin learns hoseok's story and the similarities between the two of them makes him cry. he apologizes profusely as if, by some abnormality, his being abused contributed to hoseok's.
much later jimin goes to ask jin but taehyung stops him. "don't ask him."
jimin blinks at him and taehyung takes notice of the less than considerable height difference between them.
"he had it very hard," he explains. "i don't...i don't think he wants to talk about it and even if he did, i don't think you'd be able to handle hearing it."
jimin flinches but he doesn't draw away, instead he presses himself closer and with pleading eyes, he asks to be told. and if it was any other person, taehyung would think they were asking to be exploitative but because it's jimin, taehyung knows he's asking because, even if it was in the past, he doesn't want jin to have suffered.
"it's not my story to tell."
taehyung takes to holding jimin's hand. when it first happened, it wasn't a profound, life (er, after life) altering revelation. taehyung wasn't tongue tied and sweaty, he didn't have a weight in his stomach when he reached over and took jimin's hand in his. he just did it and jimin responded by squeezing his hand lightly.
shortly after that, jimin stops sleeping on the couch too.
they're laying side by side on taehyung bed, jimin's arm across taehyung's stomach, taehyung drawing circles on his wrist as he stares at the ceiling.
"i was really looking forward to nothing," jimin whispers in the dark. "you know?"
"yeah."
"how long have you been here? do you think it ever ends?"
"i don't know," eyes still on the ceiling, taehyung stops stroking jimin's wrist and instead brings it close to press yet another kiss to it. he tells himself it's because jimin likes it but that's only half of it. the other half is simply that he finds comfort in it. "there's no sense of time here. i mean there's day and night but...there's no aging, there's no changing. it's like a long marathon of monotony."
silence falls between them as taehyung continues pressing open mouthed kisses on the part of jimin's body he's come to know almost too well.
"how did you do it?"
taehyung traces the invisible scar on jimin's wrist, stitching up the invisible slit as he does. "pills. i was too afraid to do anything else. why did you do it this way?"
jimin's head came to rest on taehyung's bare shoulder. "it was the only thing i had in the room."
a pair of scissors.
if it had been a knife or a razor, it would have been easier and maybe it would have hurt less. but jimin didn't have access to that so he used a pair of dull scissors. the image of jimin sitting on his bedroom floor, back against the door, desperately sawing at his wrist with rusty scissors make taehyung want to die all over again. unlike most of them (hoseok jumped off a bridge and jin hung himself), jimin had to work to kill himself. he had the time and the pain to go back on his decision but he didn't because he wanted to die that badly.
it makes taehyung sick.
he kisses jimin's wrist again.
on a sunday when they're walking hand in hand down the shabby supermarket aisles, jimin freezes. before taehyung can ask him what the problem is, they're moving, running towards someone.
"yoongi hyung!"
the person they're running towards turns and faces them, his eyes dark and inquisitive until they fall on jimin. recognition glints in his eyes. "jimin."
jimin's hand is ripped away as he runs to yoongi and envelops him in a tight hug. taehyung shuffles closer hesitantly but stays close when he hears jimin's shuddering.
"why are you here?" jimin cries into the stranger's shoulder. "what did you do?"
with his face pressed into jimin's should, yoongi peers up at taehyung. his stare pins taehyung. "i just..."
yoongi pulls back from jimin, keeping his hands on his shoulders.
"you should talk," yoongi scoffs, his voice gruff. "after you just up and left us like that."
"what happened?"
the way yoongi bites his lip, the way he starts to become fascinated with the pattern on the floor tells taehyung that what he is about to say is going to be somehow detrimental to jimin.
but he can't bring himself to stop it, not with the way jimin is shaking, eyes wide and fearful like they had been when he first arrived.
"first you," yoongi mumbled to his sneakers. "then jeongguk, i just--"
"kookie is here?"
yoongi nods shortly, still avoiding jimin's eyes. "about a month after you."
("what was your brother's name?" taehyung had asked one night when they were laying on his bed, a mess of tired limbs.
jimin stilled, quieted for the smallest moment before he came back. "jeongguk. i called him kookie.")
they're all packed into a very small volkswagen, courtesy of one of the regulars who favored jin's routines. taehyung is pressed up against the door in the backseat, jin's broad shoulders pushing into him, and yoongi on the other side of him.
jimin is sitting in front of him in the passenger seat, half of him hanging out of the window, a flashlight in his hands as he peers into the darkness. taehyung has half a mind to tell him to get back in, afraid that hoseok's flawed driving skills would get him killed but he doesn't. because he knows jimin wouldn't hear him right now anyway.
"hyung, you're sure he--?"
"yes," yoongi says. "jimin, i'm the one who found him, okay?"
it's been hours since they recruited the others to help them look for jeongguk. jimin was worried. not only because this place was full of weirdos but mainly because his little brother, the one he'd protected all of his life, did kill himself. the guilt was rolling off of him in waves.
jimin sticks himself back inside, settling into his seat. he turns to hoseok. "is there a beach here?"
"yeah," jin speaks up after hoseok shrugs. "you think he might've gone there?"
jimin nods. "i know he would."
"who the fuck is this?"
taehyung blanches. he'd expected a lot of things upon meeting jimin's younger brother. a resemblance for one. but he didn't look anything like jimin, he taller, thin lipped with eyes almost cartoonish wide. another thing taehyung expected was someone who was shaky and afraid.
but, after finding jeongguk sitting under the dock at the beach, jeongguk took one look at taehyung -- one look at taehyung's hand wrapped around his brother's -- and scowled.
jimin breathes out and lets go of taehyung's hand to pull jeongguk into a death grip of a hug. "what the fuck is wrong with you? why are you stupid? why would you do that?"
jeongguk pushes jimin away, not harshly, not aggressively. otherwise taehyung thinks he might have punched him, little brother or not. "why would you?"
without hesitation, jimin pulls him back in, tighter this time and jeongguk doesn't fight.
"i needed you," the younger gripes, his voice muffled. "and you just left me like i was nothing."
jeongguk doesn't share how he decided to kill himself. he doesn't share any details about what he went through in jimin's absence but taehyung, just by looking at the way jeongguk sticks to jimin's side, knows that it was a hell on earth.
the first night that jeongguk is there, jimin cries -- wails -- soaking the front of taehyung's shirt. he cries until tears stop coming out and he just sobs quietly.
"it's my fault," he'd moaned. "i killed him."
some time later, jimin manages to go to bed without crying for hours, only for a few minutes. until he stops crying all together. until he reaches a point where he's smiling again, giving taehyung good night kisses, and rolling around in the sheets like a child on cloud nine.
until he's looking at taehyung smiling and taehyung realizes that his smile isn't killing him little by little. instead it's making him feel more alive than he ever felt on earth.
he wishes for the day that he'll be able to smile back.
("being with you reminds me of what i was like before i wanted killed myself."
"what were you like?"
"i was happy.")