slip through the seams.

http://deerguk.tumblr.com/

Pairing: Kim Taehyung / Reader.

Genre: Seam Traveller AU / Semi-Soulmates AU.

Summary: Your locomotion is not that of a normal human being, rather it is to the extent
of physically being able to transport from one place to another. Normally, your ‘seams’
slip you into locations that you are familiar with, but when you unexpectedly happen upon
the apartment of Kim Taehyung in Seoul, South Korea – your ability that you have always
deemed a curse begins to feel more like a blessing in disguise.

Count: 21,883 words.

Note: There is a smut scene at 15.12.2017 – it is not necessary to read if that stuff does
not sit well with you, but you must read the final paragraph. Full sentences that are
expressed in italics are indicators that they are being spoken in Korean. I sweated blood
and tears for this fic I hope you can taste the salt when you read every single sentence.

09.02.2017 → V1

It is not uncommon for you to blink, and suddenly find yourself elsewhere.

The novel you were reading beneath afternoon summer light, bleeding gold across inky
sentences, no longer weighs lightly in your palms. The grocery store aisles with their
shelves of generic cereal brands and biscuits no longer demand to be bought beneath
fluorescent lighting but instead become rows upon rows of old paperback novels about
intangible love. The cracked plaster of your bedroom ceiling you were watching through
sleep-heavy eyes opens up into an endless blanket of navy blue, speckled with the silver
freckles of the stars, thick strands of grass nestled against your shoulder blades instead
of the crisp sheets of your bed.

The places that you end up are familiar, comforting, always the same. The library
downtown is a frequent location, the museum in the next suburb over, the meadow you
always visited as a child to bring your fantasies to life. The slips occur at peculiar times,
most often when you are stressed or exhausted down to the marrow of your bones, but
sometimes when you least expect. You can never decide whether it is worse at night or
day, because the darkness brings an eerie tension to the creaking swings in the park and
the rusting slippery slide, and the light brings an anxious bite to the bookstore bustling
with bodies that have not a clue of those who can unintentionally bend the physics of
existence and suddenly materialise in locations they know better than the back of their
own hand.
Mostly, it is simply annoying, never of any kind of benefit. Your feet just cannot maintain
their solidity on the ground they stand upon, and such a matter has branched back into
your family tree for generations. It can be controlled, but it takes years to master such a
refined art, and it can even be stopped entirely, yet such a happening is a rarity that has
only graced your great great grandfather.

Tonight is not unusual to any other. You pull back the sheets, feel the lethargy crawl out
of the cotton and beneath your skin, dragging you down, down, encouraging you onto the
mattress until a familiar tingle itches up your spine. And you think no, no, not now when
you are in nothing but a flimsy silk nightdress, when all you want to do is allow the blissful
lull of dreams to take you under, but you have never been one to have a say in this. Not
yet, at least.

The shift is a rippling wave rolling over your body, except in that wave are a thousand
needles, pricking at your bones like crackling electricity, taking you apart, reforming you
elsewhere. The first time, which occurred at the age of fourteen, hurt like absolute hell,
but now it is more a dull ache if you can refer such a thing to being quite literally pulled
into pieces and remade. You stopped counting the number of times you have slipped
through the seams once you no longer had enough fingers, toes, to tick off. And with
every jump, the sensations became more bearable.

This, though, is the first time that you have leapt through a seam that takes you across
mighty expanses of land and seas, spitting you out into an apartment too small for the
objects that cluster within.

You land, ungraciously, upon an unmade bed that homes no presence of warmth, no
recent frequency of another being. At first, you heave a weighted sigh of relief, thankful
that your body has not decided to drop you onto a hardwood table or a biting gravel road,
especially in the sparse garment that you wear. Usually, the slips are gentle, but often
they can be frenzied and quite literally just spit you wherever you can be disposed of.
Akin to a fickle woman who rushes around her apartment, throwing this and that in place
since she is already five minutes late to her date, the seams will slip and slide between
the extremities of a smooth sailing ride or a close range gunshot, messy and catastrophic
but you cannot damn well help it.

Then, the confusion, edging on the skirts of panic, starts to make itself known in an
unease beneath your skin. Because one, although you are always, always taken to places
of familiarity, you can swear on your life that you have never once been in this apartment
before, and two, you are absolutely positive that we are not in Kansas anymore, Toto. It
hints in the compact walls, the faint, yet distinct aroma of Asian cuisine that drifts through
the slot open window, the paperback books upon books that are creased and bookmarked
on the bedside table amongst stained coffee mugs, all inked in an alphabet that your pen
does not understand, nor know of at all.

Tentatively, you shuffle across the mattress until your bare soles meet the floorboards,
the touch alike stepping on ice, and it is only then that you truly register how absolutely
freezing the entire place is. In a feeble attempt to bring heat back to your blood, you firmly
rub your palms up and down your exposed arms, approaching the window and peering
through the parted curtains to the street below. It bustles with a warm, conversational
ambience, makeshift markets lining the sidewalks and concocting the delicious aromas
that make your tongue tingle, all manned by Asian men and women who are cloaked in
thick coats and long pants, scarves tucked in loops around their necks.

It is then, that you realise that it is not just the apartment that is cold, but also the
temperature outside as well. A kind of bite that cannot be conjured by an odd, stormy
summer night, one that wraps tightly around your bones in a chill that makes your entire
body quake and quiver.

No, no. Which can only mean that it is winter.

And suddenly, the confusion is completely and utterly swallowed by the panic, an anxiety
that roots deep in your stomach because not only has the seam slipped you into an
unknown apartment, but it has stretched across continents, oceans, to welcome you into
an entirely different country.

“Holy shit!” You gasp, clasping your hand over your mouth, eyes widening because this
is real, this is not a dream, it is well and truly occurring right here and now and you need
to go, go go. Desperately, you try to will yourself to be taken back home, squeezing your
eyes shut and thinking about nothing but your bed, your desk, the walls of your very own
room. But no matter how hard you try, the situation of where you are continues to creep
back up on you like a monster waiting beneath the bed, demanding to be known, revealed
and explored.

Maybe. You distressingly think. Maybe I am too cold.

So, with a mental apology to whoever resides within this apartment that unsuspectingly
lures women who can jump through space, you quickly pad over to the small walk-in
wardrobe that is nestled in the same wall as what appears to be the entrance to a
bathroom. In comparison to the unruly apartment, you discover that the clothing hanging
on the racks is surprisingly tasteful with labels that are far beyond your price range, some
items reaching into the triple figures, all menswear in suits and ties, coats, the occasional
baggy slacks. Avoiding anything drastically expensive, you settle on a forest green jumper
that hangs to your mid-thigh and a pair of sports shorts that brush past your knees –
looking completely ridiculous, but it was better than your nightdress that welcomed that
teeth of winter to take your skin for the kill.

For five minutes more, you sit upon the edge of the bed in the partial darkness, eyes
closed, focusing on home but gradually, with every passing second, losing more and more
hope. Not even a shiver outside of the icy atmosphere has made itself present, no prick
of thin needles, no weightlessness of existing without a physical form. The slip, it seems,
wishes for you to stay a while, and you know that under all circumstances, you certainly
cannot stay much longer within this apartment because god knows who it belongs to and
when they will be arriving home.

Lacking concern on an appropriate appearance, you roll on black socks and slide your
feet into a pair of sheepskin boots that are at least five sizes too big, running your fingers
through your tangled hair before exiting the bedroom and searching for the front door.
The living space is not much bigger than the sleeping quarters, with the dining area,
kitchen, and lounge space all squeezed into one, overlapping in places, but it holds a
warmth of homeliness that almost makes you wish to stay. But rather, you spot the
entrance down a short hallway that is lined with shoes from leather patent oxfords to
battered black and white converse, careful to not disturb the order as you edge past them
in the dark, eyes on the orange light that filters through the frosted glass above the
doorway, a nervousness at abandoning the security of this apartment for the streets of
this foreign land beginning to stir about your heart.

But as you reach for the door handle, there is a soft jingle, and then it is twisting open on
its own accord.

For a moment, you cannot entirely register what is happening, nor reconcile the man that
stands before you with his slender fingers still curled around the doorknob, staring with
what appears to be an expression of bewilderment that most certainly resembles your
own. With the hallway light of the apartment complex shining directly behind him, yet
completely exposing you, it is difficult to make out any certain features other than the fact
that he is built like a slender tree, tall, yet still having an aura of girth about him in the
broad set of his shoulders. Faintly, you can make out large, almond shaped eyes,
cheekbones made harsher by the shadows, honey blonde hair that is ruffled with a day
of outings, plush lips that are parted in surprise, confusion, awe. Alike a deer in headlights,
all you can find yourself capable of doing is becoming a taut statue of human muscle and
flesh, silent, frightened.

The stranger, and supposedly the owner of the home you accidentally landed within, flicks
on a light beside the doorway, washing the both of you in a yellow glow that reveals
himself entirely and has you struck with wonder. The backlight and shadows had not done
him any justice, for now, he is suddenly transformed into a marvellous beauty that leaves
you amazed and frankly – almost thankful that out of all the potential homes your seam
had to place you within, that it was his very own, if not for the fact that you were still scared
out of your rational thought, heart racing a mile a minute, almost breaking through your
ribs and escaping your chest altogether.

“What are you doing in my apartment?”

His voice is a deep crushed velvet, cloaking your skin in a language that you cannot
decipher, vowels and consonants completely and utterly foreign to your hearing.
Unknowing what to do, you gape, close your mouth, and then gape again, a mute goldfish
of fear and desperation, of please, please just take me home. But your body does not
quake and shiver, and your feet remain grounded, so all you can do is stare blankly at
the mystery man of a world galaxies apart from your own and pray that he does not skin
you down to the bone for invading. Your only solace is that his face remains passive as if
he is beyond used to being exposed to the unusual.

“My English is terrible, I apologise,” He speaks again, and you can almost cry at the sound
of your native tongue flicking in your ears. His voice still sounds so lovely, massaging into
your skin with a gentle warmth, a little unsure in its capabilities with an accent tinging the
edges. “I asked what you’re doing here.”

You blink, lips forming a perfect circle and oh. “I-If I tell you, you won’t believe me.”

“Given that I have not thrown you out yet, I’m sure you can trust that I’ll probably believe
whatever story you have to say,” And when he smiles, it looks painfully familiar, tucked in
between dusty memories that were deemed insignificant until now. You card through the
mental pages, yet he hides himself well.

But first things first. “Where am I? What country are we in?”

His smile appears to fade in the slightest, suddenly a little wary. “Seoul, South Korea.”

South. Fucking. Korea.

For an instant, an overwhelming surge of giddiness shoots from your toes to your nose,
tickling beneath your skin and you have to clasp your palms over your lips to suffocate
the disbelieving laughter. The unknown man watches on, still standing in the doorway of
his own home at the unusual girl who is finally getting her bearings on the fact that she
has travelled across oceans within the blink of an eye, the smile remaining to colour the
corners of his mouth because he is just as incredulous at the sight of a foreign being
giggling to herself inside his flat, and by the way–

“My clothes?”

His voice, laced with muted humour, snaps you back into the situation at hand and you
look down at the haphazard pairing of garments that you wear, flushing a brilliant rosy
colour because you suppose you have been caught redhanded. Dropping your hands
back to your sides, you stare up at him apologetically.

“I-I didn’t want to take them,” You murmur with hesitance, reaching into the pocket of the
sports shorts where your silk nightdress had been stuffed. Unabashedly, you hold the
flimsy, and to the conservative person, erotic item up for him to see as if to say how could
I simply stay warm in such a thing? “But where I came from, it is still summertime so this
was all that I was wearing when I arrived. It is absolutely freezing here.”

“Arrived?”

Oh.
Gathering the silk back into the pocket, your brows pull into a slight frown. “If you truly
want an explanation, I think you might need to, um, sit down. It could take us a while.”

Although the man yawns like a feline, dark eyes squinting shut, he takes a step closer so
that he is within the flat, shutting the door and unwinding the chestnut coloured scarf
draped over his shoulders before delivering another smile that remains to hone familiarity
within your subconscious.

“I have time.”

And so he fills up the kettle and sets it to boil, laying out teacups and bringing you a soft
blanket to wrap around your legs. The strangers does not change out of his long coat and
slim, charcoal trousers, appearing very prim and proper in comparison to you, but he does
not seem to mind, ignoring the ever present burn that simmers on your cheeks at the
sudden awareness of your own sloppy appearance. Once the tea has been made, he
brings the porcelain cups over to the dimly lit dining table, placing one before you and
then settling into the chair directly across the stretch of wood. Absently, you watch the
steam curl in spirals from the cherry red liquid until he is breaking the silence.

“What is your name?”

Flicking your gaze back up to him, you cannot help but be struck again at how placidly
beautiful he is. “It’s Y/N.”

“Ah, it sounds beautiful. Y/N.” It truly does sound lovely on the tip of his tongue, and you
wish to swim in his delighted grin that uncannily resembles a box. “I’m Kim Taehyung.
Pleased to meet you.”

At that, you laugh, which appears to make him light up that much more. “The pleasure is
all mine.”

And just like that, you lay your trust on the table for this Kim Taehyung who strikes
familiarity within you, yet for reasons unknown, to observe and attempt to understand.
You tell him everything. From how the ability to slip through the seams in space has
stretched centuries beyond your lifetime, a ribbon that has woven itself through the
generations upon generations of your family, but only tying in knots around the hearts of
a select, destined few – you being one of them – to the fact that it can take decades to
control its sporadic occurrence unless luck is on your side and it gradually releases you
from its treacherous clutches, to the general relativity of the seam slips and how that
makes your visit to his apartment, thousands of miles beyond your own home, such an
irregularity, a flaw in the metaphorical system that is travelling, jumping, leaping through
the construct of physics from one destination to another.

“So basically, it is like– Ah. I cannot think of the English word for it.” Taehyung frowns,
rubbing at his jaw in concentration, but you already know.
You take a sip of your lukewarm tea. “Teleportation.”

“Yes! Teleportation.” He says it as one would say eureka! – full of gusto and with an
affirmative clap of his broad palm against the table. “That is … Amazing. A gift.”

When you laugh, his cheeks tinge a soft rose shade. “A curse, more like it, since I have
no control over when it happens. I mean, right before I arrived here, I was getting into
bed, on the verge of sleep. It is disorienting, especially because it targets you when you
are vulnerable.”

“I think it is, uh, fascinating.” You like the way that his brows pinch together when he
searches for a word, eyes flicking back and forth, distant, as though the letters are strung
up in the air before him to sift through. Then, his gaze drifts back to you, and you cannot
help the delightful warmth that envelops your limbs at the weight of it. “Beautiful, in the
way that your feet simply cannot stay grounded to one place. They strive for somewhere
new, different.”

With your fingertip, you circle the rim of your teacup, a meek smile pulling at the corners
of your lips as your words draw up a familiar memory, one with your grandfather on the
back porch, coated in streams of sunlight, watermelon crunching between teeth. “I always
wonder if they are searching for something, or trying to take me back to my childhood.”

“Maybe they are looking for someone to make them stay.”

When Taehyung speaks those words, mirth plays around his eyes, honesty softening his
features, and you cannot help but look away, feeling your heart start to pick up at an
erratic pace that you are certainly sure, with the silence that envelops the apartment, he
can hear. Truly, it was something you had always wondered too, whether the seams were
trying to slip you into the life of another, quite literally throwing you to the nearest body of
warmth. That was how many of the seam slipping generations before you found love,
after all.

Determined on changing the subject, to be free of his dark chocolate eyes that threaten
to drown you, you scrabble about your mind for the second question that has been
nagging at your subconscious. “I-I know this might sound strange, but I swear I have
heard your name before. I think I must have, for me to be brought here since the seams
will only take me to places that hold familiarity.”

At that, Taehyung seems to falter, blanking, looking down so that his tousled fringe
obscures the beautiful irises that were drinking you in as easily as the tea. A small sigh
heaves from his shoulders, fingertips drumming against the underside of the table.

“Well, I don’t mean to sound … Conceited? But I am very famous in South Korea.” The
words sound unsure, skittering across the wood in barely a mumble. “I am a singer. But
lately, I have been starring in a lot of dramas and other television shows, some that are
broadcasted worldwide. That might have been where you saw me or heard my name.”
The way he talks about it is like a heavy burden that sinks ships into the depths of dark
oceans, that swallows light and only provides aeons of black oblivion. It seems to hook
into his bones and drag him down, down, and you wonder, for somebody who must have
the world at his feet with such fame, how he could experience such a feeling, a distaste
for the career path that he walks.

“I see. Well, I must say, you were relatively calm when you opened the door to find me.”
You say as an attempt to lighten the unexpectedly tense atmosphere, smiling into your
teacup before taking a sip. The floral taste soothes wondrous flavours over your tongue.
“If it were me coming into my flat to find a complete stranger, I probably would have
panicked and called the authorities.”

“That is the unfortunate thing about fame, I’m used to coming home to unfamiliar people
searching through my things. The guards are normally always paying attention to who
comes and goes downstairs, but some people manage to slip past.” Taehyung says it
with an exhausted lilt, tugging at a string of sympathy within you. But then he creates that
smile again, directly at you, the kind that lights fires and holds sunlight and you feel
yourself getting warmer. “But you’re the first foreigner, and you looked so dazed and
confused. I thought maybe you had moved in as a neighbour and accidentally taken the
wrong keys – that was until I saw you wearing my clothes.”

And when you laugh with him, you feel it, the sensation of losing your footing, a vibration
that tickles up your limbs and has you placing the empty teacup upon the table. When
you do so, the porcelain clatters, and his curious gaze seems to understand why. A
particularly harsh wave of needlelike pricks across your skin has you wincing.

“Taehyung, it’s time for me to go.”

There is a fleeting hint of something that crosses his expression at your words, akin to
disappointment, despondency, stirring a masochistic kind of happiness within you
because you are almost glad that he wants you to stay. Desperately, you wish to do so
too, wanting to learn everything about his life between the lines, the hastily scrawled notes
in the bookmarks, penned down in the ink of his existence.

“Will you come back?” He says, and the words are laced with so much hope that you
cannot bear to deny him, to give him any kind of answer that translates to no.

In a stretch of bravery, you reach your hand across the table, and in an air of ease, he
takes it with a gentle squeeze. His fingers are much longer than your own, the knuckles
curling around your palm, almost swallowing it up whole and you find yourself thinking
how uncanny it is that they fit so beautifully together, jigsaw pieces that match perfectly.

“I hope so.” And that is all you can give him, but he appears to deem it enough with the
smile that lights up on his lips, that curves his eyes and god, you beg that this was not an
accident, an unexpected fault that was never supposed to happen. Taehyung smooths
his thumb across your skin, and you shiver.
“I hope so too.”

They are the final words that you hear him speak before you open your eyes and find
yourself falling, landing upon the creased sea of your own bedsheets, face to face with
the cracked plaster of your ceiling once more, patiently awaiting your arrival in the
shadows.

The trembles in your bones take longer to settle this time, and you wonder if that is due
to the distance, or maybe the fact that Kim Taehyung has already tucked his heart right
beside your own and deemed the spaces between your ribs a place for it to call home.

When you look down, you realise that you are still wearing his clothes.

“Oh,” You breathe, smoothing your palm down the front of the green material, sighing
when it lifts the aroma of his cologne into your senses.

Although the heat that simmers in your bedroom, a stark comparison to the shivers that
had rattled you back in Taehyung’s apartment, you cannot bring yourself to peel off the
sweater, only kicking off the shorts before curling up against the mattress. Your sleep is
dreamless, maybe because what had occurred on this evening of winter and summer, of
here and there, you lived something much greater than your imagination could ever think
to conjure.

When you awake the morning after, you see him again over breakfast, mouth full with
half-chewed cereal, forefinger pressing the channel button on the television remote as
you aimlessly surf for something that is no less than boring.

You have to backtrack, as it is the split second before you change the channel again that
you see his familiar face, sitting on an entertainment panel and smiling the brilliantly mind-
blowing grin that pours elation into your heart. Mesmerised, you ignore the subtitles that
stream along the lower portion of the screen, simply analysing his ethereal features, how
beautiful his deep baritone sounds when it strings around his native tongue, and how
almost unfamiliar his demeanour appears in comparison to the man whose apartment
you happened upon last night, a thin facade that barely veils the truth beneath.

You decide you like the Taehyung who channelled warmth into your hand and whispered
hopes across the dining table than the one who seems to strain his smile through the
pixels on the screen, and you hope to every entity in this universe that the one staring at
the camera with lifeless eyes, indirectly at you lounged on your sofa, is not the only
version you will see ever again.

22.02.2017 → V2

The second time you meet Taehyung, it sounds like he is fucking the life out of somebody.
To be frank, he most definitely is. And you certainly disturb that by misjudging your
balance – due to your current state of mind not necessarily being strait-lace as a result of
the Sunday family barbeque you were at only moments ago, fourth mimosa in hand –
toppling into the glass cabinet-come-pantry that is propped up in his kitchen. Nothing
shatters, thankfully, but you certainly make a clatter that encourages the squeaking bed
to still, the heated moans to die out into a silence that stirs sickly in the depths of your
stomach, choking at your throat until he quickly emerges from the room and closes the
door behind him.

Taehyung, you finalise in that moment, is truly so and utterly gorgeous – no matter the
situation. Sex softens his limbs, lust glimmering in the beads of sweat that slip down the
golden expanse of his torso, cock straining harshly, neglected, against low hanging cotton
briefs, lips swollen and bright red. And god, you wish it were you in that bed with him
instead, your hands that created the beautiful honey storm of his mussed hair.

“Bad time?” You whisper with a lazy smile, hands behind your back, and the corners of
his mouth colour with the hint of one. He looks sleepy, eyes drooping, digging his
fingertips into the left, trying to pull himself out of the daze of sex.

“Maybe– No, yeah. I hadn’t–“ He lazily waves his hand about, leaving the rest of his words
to interpretation, and you nod with a fluster, understanding. It is difficult not to when you
find yourself flicking your gaze southward every other second.

Taehyung seems to notice your constant wandering eyes, his own appraising your simple
outfit of a black shirt styled as a dress, how easily he could slide the cotton up your lovely
thighs and have what lays between for himself. Maybe that is just the desire talking, or
maybe he is already dipping his feet into waters that he has not tread within in too long.
Nonetheless, he all but forgets the girl that he left tangled in his sheets with the gardenia
tattoo that runs vines of ink up her spine, eyes settling hungry, desperate, on you, until
the door behind him is jostling open with a rush of curiosity that soon falls into sheer
disgust, betrayal.

“Who is this?” The girl demands, wearing what appears to be his shirt, and although you
cannot understand her, you can tell by the twisted look that pulls at her features that she
is livid. She looks between the two of you, eyes widening with every passing
moment. “Seriously, what the fuck is this, Taehyung?”

When you shrink back at her sudden lash of words, Taehyung snaps into action and turns
to face her, his expression completely blank. “I can’t explain, Irene. I don’t want to, either.”

“What do you mean you can’t explain? How the fuck did she get in here?” Irene shouts
with a newborn vivacity, her cheeks flaring brightly, but Taehyung is unfazed. She was
just another girl, another number in his cellphone, another fuck available on call.

“I think you need to go,” Taehyung mutters quietly, but with enough venom that you see
the girl recoil whatever spitfire she had left back into her lungs, swallowing hard before
storming into his room. It only takes less than ten seconds for her to remerge, a coat in
place, a purse tucked underneath her arm and a glare burning holes through you before
she breezes past Taehyung, who looks almost bored.

“Don’t call me again, asshole.”

And then, the door slams with a finality that he welcomes wholeheartedly.

You feel like you have landed straight in the middle of a drama episode, the idea, not at
all helped by your tipsiness, having you smacking a palm over your lips to hold in the
laughter. Taehyung, with his firm expression, immediately softens at the sight of you, a
rueful grin lifting his cheeks as you try to conjure a sentence.

“God, that was awkward! I am so sorry.”

But he understands, running a hand down his face before pushing it back through his
hair, making the honey strands stick up even more wildly. “It’s fine. You can’t help it.”

For a moment, the pair of you stare at one another in silence, drinking in the sight of the
other after weeks of separation. There were a multitude of times that you thought maybe,
just maybe, you were truly never going to see him in the flesh ever again, and so it takes
everything in you to not touch him, embrace him. After all, you are merely no more than
acquaintances, even if he knows the greatest secret that rules your life. One of the very
few outside of your family to learn and understand the reality of you.

Yet already, the connection between you runs so much deeper, layers beneath layers of
trust, all based around the promise of returning to him. It fuels the yearning of wishing to
learn about every little detail of him, the finer dust that coats his existence, all the more.

The smile has not left his face, his voice splitting the silence. “You came back.”

“Indeed I did,” You reply, almost sheepish in the way that you look down at your feet, the
intensity at which he watches you practically unbearable. It hunts beneath skin, seeking
answers to questions that you know nothing of.

“Couldn’t get enough of me, hm?” He winks, and you cannot help the laughter that
surfaces once more, the playful charm of his tone igniting a pure joy within you that
nobody else on the earth has made you feel.

Though before you can reply, Taehyung rolls his shoulders back, golden skin stretching
rather nicely over the muscle of his abdominals, pectorals, bringing your laughter to a
definitive halt, entranced by the captivating move before he drags his feet over to the sofa
tucked in the corner of the living space to slouch down. If he did not have your attention
before, he certainly does now with the way that he sits, knees spread apart, hunching
himself into his torso with a hand lazily scratching at a bicep, the outline of his dick so
plainly evident against his underwear and you are still trying to figure out whether the heat
that flushes your cheeks is due to the alcohol or the laughter or your sudden spark of lust,
a flame that has never been lit by another. That form of intimacy is too risky for a traveller,
for somebody who can barely keep themselves grounded as it is.

But you suppose there is a first for everything, especially with the liquid courage that
surges through your veins and draws you towards the couch, taking a tentative seat
beside him.

Taehyung, eyes still weighted with the pull of desire, gazes at your thighs, the way your
dress has hiked itself up to reveal the smooth flesh further. His fingertips itch to touch
you, especially with the naive flicker that skirts your gaze, though instead, he settles for
words.

“Where were you? What were you doing?”

His timbre voice heartens the heat that spars within your chest, digs deep into your being.
Although his demeanour, the sex that rolls from his skin in seas that skim at your irresolute
shores, you presume that he has not a clue of what he is doing to you, what fervency he
is drawing beneath your skin. When you barely, in the slightest, move closer to his side,
his heavy stare immediately flicks back down to your legs, the tip of his tongue poking at
the corner of his mouth.

Keyword – presume.

“On every second Sunday, in the summertime, my family gathers and we have a
barbeque.” The words come out too softly, almost hesitant, giving away that your thoughts
are far from such a meagre conversation. You try not to look down, rather, fixating on the
lovely shape of his damp lips. It proves to be just as irremediable against the effulgent
flames consuming you from the inside out. “We eat a lot, and we- Uh. We drink a lot.”

At that, Taehyung smiles in that sunshine kind of way, light pouring into the dimly lit flat
and you hope to every entity that such a radiance does not reveal the dark haze that drifts
about your gaze, the burn that simmers upon your cheeks.

An infinitely small part of you hopes that it does – that he catches on and sinks his teeth
in your throat, predator on prey, hands wandering the land of your body.

Taehyung nudges your knee with his own, and its does more damage to your heart than
it should, whisking it up in a carnal whirlwind. The smirk that plays on his lips is absolutely
devilish. “I thought something felt a little… Different, about you.”

If anything, your cheeks burn brighter. “How so?”

“You seem a little intoxicated.”

“O-Oh,” is the only thing you manage to stammer before you start giggling, underlying his
point in bold. As if he cannot help himself, he too starts to laugh – a deep, sensual tune
of a strummed bass, humming around the apartment, entrancing you in its endearment.
It is a moment like this, you discover with time, that is one of foreshadowing, the casual
way in which you fall into the sound of one another like a check in the box of the many
steps to this being something much more, bigger, than the two of you can handle, yet you
take it by the reigns without any means. This comfortability, contentment, paving a path
to a future you never once thought of, nonetheless considered.

But when Taehyung suddenly grunts in the middle of his laughter, winces, you raise your
brows. “Everything okay?”

“Uh,” is all that he mumbles, shifting rather uncomfortably on the couch, strain pulling at
his features, thinly veiled by mild embarrassment. “L-Like I said. Didn’t. Um…” And his
eyes flitting down to his crotch is all the answer that you need.

All the push that you need to offer.

“Do you want me to help with that?”

Alike he were plainly slapped across the face, he stares at you with widened eyes, and it
would almost be comical if not for the burning desire that consumes you entirely, the way
that his expression falls into one of delighted, lascivious promise. Almost doubtful, he
inclines his chin, a guide to bring you forward, lacing invisible ribbons around your wrists
that draw you closer, closer, until you unsteadily slide onto his lap, bare skin to skin, thighs
straddling either side of his own.

You feel him as if he has every inch of your body shaped to his own, not merely just your
hips weighing down on his lap, his palms squeezing the tops of your thighs, thumbs
brushing at the flesh, your own caressing his throat in such a way that his lips part
invitingly. There, with the heat of his cock pressed to your thinly clothed centre, you watch
one another with curiosity, a question that hangs silently between you, yet flares in
iridescent neon. Do you want what I want?

Taehyung, in a movement you deem bold, but one that he knows well with too many
women lost in the fabrics of his bedsheets, leans forward and closes his eyes to slits, long
eyelashes colliding. When he dusts his lips up your throat, barely kissing, just the gentlest
of touches, your bones turn to marble and you find yourself a statue. He halts.

“Have you done this before?”

You shudder when his whisper brushes along your jaw with the movement of his lips,
featherlight. Right then and there, intoxicated by the proximity of him, you almost grit your
teeth and lie. But Taehyung appears to be a man that sees truths like distress signals,
the kind to dig his nails deep into the soils, unearth honesty in the dirt that stains his
fingertips. He would exhume candour from your very soul, and so you bite your tongue
until it bleeds, because bitter copper often tastes better than veracity.

“N-No. Too dicey.”

A small huff of a chuckle tickles your skin, and to your disdain and his reluctance, he pulls
away, nearing only once more to place a delicate kiss upon your flushed cheek before
resting your foreheads together. At this distance, you can see the streaks of caramel that
coil around his iris, ambivalent in nature. Your heart stirs a frenzy when his broad palms
leave your thighs, instead coming up to frame your face.

“Not like this, then.” The firm words circle the curve of your ear, the hint of a covenant
underlying his tone, as if to say not yet, but not never.

And, in order to demonstrate his point, a vibration hums at the base of your spine, inching
up, up. Your toes and fingertips tingle, lashes fluttering, limbs quivering like a leaf caught
in the shivering breeze and he notices – you can tell by the way that his nails seem to dig
a little into your skin, a silent demand to stay although you both know that there is no
control over such a thing. Taehyung smiles, a small, empathetic twitch of his lips before
they move.

“Come back again, okay?”

There is no room for denial.

“I promise.”

When you arrive home, the sky is beginning to blend with the evening, distant darkness
looming upon the horizon as the sun progress in its descent. The strung fairy lights in the
backyard have flickered to life, stars that glitter in the midway juncture of night and day,
casting a soft ambience among the gentle chatter and laughter of your family. Meat sizzles
on the barbecue, glasses clinking against the lips of wine bottles, and you rush to grab
yourself a glass as a means to calm down from what nearly occurred on the other side of
the world, but frail fingers curling around your wrist halt you in your path.

“Where did you go today?”

And the way that your grandfather stares at you with his crinkled, kind eyes is almost like
he knows that you went someplace that you are still trying to understand, a place anew
that you wish to be invited back to more than once, that becomes a familiarity to your
seams. You smile, a hushed secret between the two of you, and the sensation of
Taehyung’s lips ghosting along your jaw tingles in just the slightest as you speak.

“Somewhere I think that I am supposed to belong.”

10.06.2017 → V22

Visiting Taehyung on that one fated night was no mistake, no flaw in the system that
accidentally projected you too far. For if such a thing were true, you would not be going
back there, over and over again, seeing him more often than you do the wilting wildflowers
in the meadow, the worn spines of the library paperbacks. His smile becomes a regularity,
his voice a constant, his mannerisms and language something that rubs off on your skin
over four months of arriving, departing, feeling.

Four months is all that it takes for Taehyung to learn that you absolutely despise tomatoes
in their natural form, but adore the taste when combined with sauces, soups, anything but
the slimy texture that they take in their solid state. To learn that you are studying a
bachelor of science, majoring in physics in order to grasp a deeper understanding about
the way your body defies all that is supposed truth and fact. To learn that your grandfather
has played a greater role in your life than your parents in the sense that neither of them
honed the traveller gene, so he was the one to teach you all of the ropes, the necessities,
the what to and to not dos. To learn that your friends are treasures, few in number, but
enough to keep you content, to understand and trust the reason why you suddenly run
out of the club and into the shadows of the alley, or spend longer than necessary in the
change rooms, because if anyone were to bend down and look beneath the door, your
feet would be nowhere to be seen. To learn that your favourite colour is blood orange and
the time of day that you enjoy most is cloudy sunsets on the foreshore, where salt sticks
to the roof of your mouth and the waves make love to the sand, the sun upon the horizon
turning the clouds into mountains of violet, tangerine, rouge pink, reflecting onto the
surface of the sea in an ethereal mirror of the sky. To learn that your time as a high school
student was hell as a result of your curse, the slips and leaps occurring so often when
you first started having them at the age of fourteen that you almost did not graduate,
always running out in the middle of tests or not even arriving at school in the first place.
To learn that, like him, you worked your absolute ass off to get where you are now in your
life, college being a lot easier to maintain due to the spaced out attendance, the fact that
you are older now, more experienced, able to understand.

Four months is all that it takes for you to learn that Taehyung started his career in a seven-
member boy band that he is still close with, considers as brothers, to this very day. To
learn that he adores children and all kinds of animals, anything, really, that he can hold
and cuddle to his chest. To learn that he understands and speaks English so well because
he lived in Canada for two years and, in fact, only moved back home to Seoul at the start
of last year. To learn that although his sociable personality on television, he prefers to
keep to himself, enjoys sitting out on his balcony with the plants and a light novel over
spending time in the limelight. To learn that his singing voice is quite possibly the most
beautiful thing you have ever had the blessing of hearing, like rivers of honey trickling
across your skin, the goosebumps that raise from crackling firewood, humming deep into
the core of your being, nestling into your bones and heart to stay for good. To learn that
he frequently has nightmares that have him waking up screaming and breaking out in a
cold sweat, that give him bruises beneath his eyes in a shade of lavender, the worse ones
often forming a mild rash on his left wrist. To learn that he cannot, for the life of him, get
along with people fuelled by arrogance, who cannot be open-minded to the world and
what is occurring around them, refuse to embrace that there is so much more out there,
not only on Earth, but in the entire galaxy that we have not a clue of.

The two of you learn and grow from one another, watering your leaves in newfound
knowledge about your individual cultures and lifestyles. He shows you the proper way to
hold a pair of chopsticks, while you teach him the correct way to use cutlery (you have
not a clue of how he was doing it wrong the entire time while he was living in Canada, but
apparently, he was never phased by it). He teaches you Korean phrases – he adores
when you point out random items in his apartment and say “chaegjang” (bookcase)
or “chimdae” (bed) – while you help refine his skill in your own native tongue, arriving one
day to find he has bought an English dictionary and thesaurus for both of you to go
through. You even play beer pong with just the two of you at his dining table, using a
watered down beer that tastes like dirt, but after he sinks the ball into your third cup, you
decide the flavour is sweeter when you share it with him.

Neither of you mention the night where your intoxicated fingers curled into the front of his
shirt, his lustrous palms squeezing the muscle of your thighs and eliciting such a
sensation within you that even to this day, you barely know how either of you managed
to control yourselves. Whether the lack of addressing the matter is out of embarrassment,
uncertainty, modesty, you are unsure. But it is a faraway thought, something that only
shows its face when you are alone, late at night, thinking of a pair of lips that shape into
a grin that resembles a box of sunlight.

By the third month, you are returning to him on a weekly basis, starting to count your trips
to the other side of the world on the notepad that sits beside his desk calendar. One strike,
one arrival. Twenty-one in total.

But when you sit on the balcony of his apartment on the morning of your twenty-second
visit, relaxed against the white metal of an intricately designed chair made for gardens –
though Taehyung has never really been one to follow the stereotypical constructs of
general living – ankles crossed and the breeze tickling your cheeks, you peel back a layer
of Taehyung that reveals more of the shadowed truth tucked beneath. Although he is
seemingly an open book, the sentences are scrawled in a never-ending labyrinth and you
are still running endless sprints to reach the centre.

Sometimes, you think he may never let you make it.

The foliage pressed up against the railing lessens the intensity of the sunlight, the final
threads of spring evident in the flowers that blossom from their respective pot plants, the
leaves of the curling vines a brilliant shade of green. A complete juxtaposition to home,
where emerald is near its end, falling dead to be crunched beneath the soles of feet on
footpaths, leaving the trees to be skeletons, stark and bare. Tea steams between your
palms in a dainty porcelain cup, and it is one of the many things in life that you have
learned Taehyung greatly indulges in. It is a beautiful day, not too warm, nor too chilly,
perfect for you to arrive in a thin, long-sleeved floral dress that makes Taehyung grin all
the brighter when you surprise him by suddenly barrelling into the small dining table, feet
still tingling.

Although the professional wear that you met him in, you come to discover that he has a
preference for casual, slack clothing in the form of loose canvas shirts and baggy trousers.
If anything, it makes him more handsome, a natural state of his that you adore, and that
you realise with time, you are the only one who gets to see. It is easy for the idol image
to slip away and dissolve into thin air when his celebrity status does not reach your local
news, the hot gossip in the magazines, only sighted in a rare episode of this or that, which
airs on the international channel. In your eyes, he is not the famous Kim Taehyung, even
if he remains to be a brilliant star that lights up your navy, midnight skies.

You keep your eyes trained on the small sparrow that flits about the gutters of the building
on the opposite side of the street, swallowing your nerves. Hesitancy clings to your
tongue, making you cringe when you speak.

“Can I ask you something?”

Taehyung sniffs, and you try to remain casual, taking another sip of the delightful,
lukewarm liquid. Today, it is ginger. “Don’t tell me you want to make hoeddeok again?”

Almost choking on your tea, you sputter into the cup. “No, oh my god. Definitely no.”

The both of you would have thought making pancakes was an easy task, except you
drastically proved yourselves wrong last month by accidentally confusing the salt to be
the pot of sugar, and ultimately leaving the hoeddeok to burn near black on the griddle
after becoming distracted by a song on the radio that Taehyung insisted – although he
always says it was you, in fact – that you both dance to. No amount of cinnamon and
honey could have saved such a disaster.

“Tell me, then. I am, as you Westerners say, all ears.”

Although you laugh, the nerves start to resurface, demanding to be known. So the only
thing you can possibly do is command to his word – tell him.

“Don’t get me wrong when I say that I adore your apartment–” You tug at a thread that
hangs loose at the hem of your dress, chewing the inside of your cheek– “But I thought,
with your fame, that you would be walking on marble floors and have a mansion entrance
guarded by real life tigers, y’know?”

Bringing a standstill to your fretting fingers, his own curl around your knuckles, and when
you stray your eyes from the small bird that still flutters about, you discover that he is not
looking at you. A sigh silently shudders from between your lips.
“So I guess what I am saying is… Why don’t you? Why do you prefer it here?”

Stretches of silence pass, an unnerving quiet made less tense by the commotion of the
street below, the gentle singing of the birds. Your only relief is found in the matter that he
still holds your hand, thumb grazing over the tops of your knuckles.

“I think,” Taehyung begins, unravelling your balled up fist so he can study your nails,
chipped and imperfect. “I don’t live in a place like that because that’s what everyone
expects. They all… Envisage me owning a great, luxurious home in Gangnam-gu, a place
so large that it holds more space than life.” As if deeply entranced by the design of your
cracked cuticles, he inspects them closer, voice lowering to a murmur. “So I live here
because it is quiet and homely. Rarely anybody finds me, and heavy lawsuits get involved
if my personal address is publicly spread, which nobody can afford to face since I have
not wasted all of that money on granite countertops and– Hold on, real tigers? What kind
of cruel person do you think I am?”

When he speaks the final sentence with a cheeky smirk, your stiff posture relaxes into a
gentle chuckle, and he at long last looks up at you, wanting to catch sight of your smile,
luminescent in the golden rays of the sun that filter through the foliage. His answer deems
your suspicions correct, since his apartment is just so helplessly and
wholeheartedly Taehyung in its homing of unusual figurines and sculptures that he attains
on his adventures to markets, in the furniture from the cream couch to the emerald
gramophone that ceases to match anything else in the room, in its cosiness and love that
tucks between the floorboards and seeps through the wall plaster. You could see his
television personality residing in an impressive manor – but Taehyung, the genuine, real
man that you have grown to know and understand, blends with his apartment as if he
were made of the coasters stacked upon on the coffee table and the magnets that tack
loose leaflets and notes to the fridge.

“True, this place is very you,” You mumble, noticing how much larger, longer his fingers
are that wrap around your own. He has made a habit out of holding your hand, something
that, at first, had rose petals dusting your cheeks until it became so normal that you barely
think twice about it. “I think that may be why I like it so much.”

“That’s good,” Taehyung nods, the smile only faint on the corners of his lips now. “I don’t
want people to befriend me, love me, because of my fame.”

The way the words casually fall from his tongue is like an afterthought, yet the true
meaning suddenly chills you to the bone, heavy lead that weighs down on your heart out
of sympathy. It truly must be so difficult to be in such a situation, never knowing if the man
at that bar buys you a drink out of friendliness or out of hopes for a much greater
repayment, or if the girl that scrawls her number on your palm has interest or dollar signs
shining in her eyes. The pair of you, although experiencing drastically polar opposite
circumstances, are more alike than you both realise – isolated by matters that neither of
you can help, living in a world viewed through a kaleidoscope, rather than the clear lenses
of others. Like a moth to a flame, it selfishly draws you closer to him because he
understands, and nobody that you have met outside of your family has sat in the same
perspective as you before.

The air suddenly feels too thick, an uncomfortable tension settling on your skin until you
decidedly shrug it off. “Well, I guess it’s not every day that you get so lucky to have a
random girl who has not a clue of your social status suddenly appear in your apartment,
wearing your clothes.”

“More like an incredibly cute girl.”

Although his lungs produce the language of his native tongue, you manage to grab onto
one of the words, fluttering warmth in your chest and probably on your cheeks as well –
but Taehyung is long used to your bashful blushing. He finds it absolutely endearing.

Raising a brow at him, you playfully dig your nails into the skin of his palm. “Did you just
call me cute?”

He winces at that sharp stabs and then grins like a wolf.

“Maybe your Korean is worse than we thought.”

29.09.2017 → V53

If this is what falling in love feels like, then you have leapt from the edge of that cliff, your
body weightless in the stretches of air that separate you from the oceans below, never
reaching the waves, an eternal drop as the distance grows greater and greater.

It was never really something that you ever considered. Love was a faraway land that
your feet never reached, at least, not until you learned to control their sporadic ways of
travelling. So when you began to feel butterfly wings stir within your chest from the day
Taehyung started to embrace you upon your arrival, sweeping you into his arms and
murmuring a gentle what took you so long? into the strands of your hair, you began to
figure that maybe, on a feeble limb of hope, he may possibly feel the same way about
you too.

Arriving today is much the same, except your seam glides you right into the bathroom,
bracing your palms on the vanity before you manage to slip on the wet tiles. Droplets of
perspiration still stream down the glass of the shower, and you urgently tame your mind
to not think about Taehyung and his golden skin, glistening from the cold water that barely
manages to soothe the humidity of Seoul, even near the end of summer. It is only then
that you reconcile the thick coat that you wear, groaning and desperately trying to roll the
fabric off of your already sweating skin, trying not to think too hard about the plastic bags
overflowing with food and house supplies that you had just abandoned in the parking lot
of the supermarket back where morning was still rising.
“You’re not a burglar, right?”

At his distant shout, you huff and roll your eyes before escorting yourself out of the
bathroom, draping your coat over his desk chair and then poking your head into the living
space. The familiar pang of lightheadedness overwhelms you at the sight of him, as usual,
golden hair already dry and slightly curling in the heat, a loose white shirt draping from
his shoulders, denim blue shorts slack on his hips. When he spots you, the dazzling box
grin is revealed, completely blinding you before he is making his way over, enveloping
your smaller frame into his body and giving you a tight squeeze that feels better than
home.

Taehyung rocks you side to side, humour lilting his tone. “What took you so long?”

“It has only been two days,” You mildly comment, though you understand. Even an hour
without him is starting to feel like years have passed.

Chuckling, Taehyung leans back to look down at you, mirth swallowing his beautiful, dark
eyes and you swear that underneath their gaze, you would abide by any of his words.
You would murder a small village for him if he asked you to do so while staring at you like
that. Speaking figuratively, of course.

“Two days too long,” He chimes, and if anything, his grin spreads wider. “Hey, so I have
an idea–“

But suddenly, you can no longer take it, pressing your palms against his chest and
pushing yourself away from him. Something akin to worry, concern, glances across his
features until you are speaking words that have him absolutely cackling.

“I’m sorry but it is so fucking hot – Oh my god, you were suffocating me. I am going to die
from moving from one temperature extremity to the next!”

Through his laughter, the kind that normally fills you with waterfalls elation, Taehyung
gasps. “Y-Your face … It’s so hilarious when y-you’re mad.” And then, regaining some of
his stability, he wipes at his eyes, trying not to sputter at the way you dramatically fan
your face. “There is a dress hanging up next to the coats, go put that on.”

Stumbling out a thank you, your feet cannot carry you to his wardrobe quick enough,
instantly finding the white fabric and yanking it from the hanger. Taehyung, still chuckling
to himself, returns to the living room for your privacy while you change, not even having
the chance to notice how pretty the garment is until you have urgently peeled off your
jeans and sweater and adorned the material on your figure. He had taken to buying you
clothes within a month of you arriving, realising that your seasons were completely
opposite, so you would either arrive boiling hot or freezing your toes off. Spring and
autumn are a period of peace that accustom to your not too heavy, but not too light
selection of fashion. Tying your hair up into a loose bun, you heave a sigh of exasperation
at how ridiculously humid the place feels, almost missing the ice that clings to the air back
home before Taehyung calls out are you ready?

Placing your clothes with the coat, you drag your feet out of the bedroom, collapsing onto
the cream sofa beside Taehyung. He hands you a glass of water after appreciatively
eyeing the dress he picked out and you gulp it down within three seconds, not missing
the impressed expression that holds his features before they soften into humble
excitement.

“So, my plan.” He waggles his eyebrows, and you raise your own to the ceiling as a means
to let him continue on. “I know we haven’t tried it yet, and I know you’re concerned about
doing so. But I was kind of wondering if, um–“ The hesitancy that skirts his voice has you
unnerved, wondering what he could possibly be thinking of until– “You want to come
outside to the markets with me?”

Oh.

Taehyung was right, the idea of leaving his flat over the past seven months was a concept
that had restless fear knotting in your stomach. You itched to see the outside world of his
city, yet it was too risky, too troublesome with your situation of being the living
embodiment of a spontaneous disappearing act, unassisted by the fact that he has a face
known by the majority of the South Korean population, which will garner even a greater
crowd of attention that you most certainly do not need.

“I mean you don’t have to,” He quickly says after your silent pause, rubbing the back of
his neck and pulling a face. “But it’s dark out, so if anything were to, uh, happen – nobody
would really see? Actually, forget it. I’m sorry, it is such a stupid idea–“

“Like a date?”

Your abrupt words make his jaw go slack, gaping at you in sheer surprise before he
smacks his lips shut. A tiny, delighted smirk forms soon after. “If you want it to be, I
guess?”

“Okay, let’s go then,” You shrug with a smile, trying to be indifferent, but your fingers
quiver and shake, not with the need to escape but with the desperation to be right here,
right now, about to experience this with him.

And you are not sure if he notices the tremble of your knuckles, but he takes your hands
anyway, squeezing them reassuringly with a grin that sears light and adoration through
your heart, repeating your words.

“Let’s go.”
Seoul, you discover, is breathtakingly beautiful.

The view that you had from Taehyung’s apartment never really did the city any justice.
Truly, it displayed how busy the streets could get, how lively the stalls that lined the road
once a month could become, but viewing the scenery from above could never entirely
compare to the feeling of being immersed within it.

The air is much better outside, not as dense, cramped like it was within the apartment.
You feel like you can truly breathe through the summer heat out here, exhilaration
pumping through your veins as Taehyung takes you through the apartment building,
holding your hand once you get into the elevator and never letting it go, not even when
you reach the markets that create volume and a warm ambience down by the Han River.
As a means to distort his identity, he wears a black cotton face mask that you decide suits
him, makes his large, almond eyes all the more expressive as he chatters about each
stall, teaches you about the ingredients in the many delicious foods, delights when you
try on the traditional hanbok with a skirt in a beautiful shade of rose. It matches your
cheeks, he idly comments, and as if to prove his point, they flush all the more fiercely.

After dining on kogi mandu, the most delicious dumplings to have ever graced your
tastebuds, the pair of you simply stroll along, enjoying the amiable atmosphere, interlaced
hands swinging between you. A few curious glances are made in your general direction
at the man who, although his mask, still attains an extraordinarily attractive quality about
him, that most likely rises a question of familiarity within their thoughts, but they do not
make any comment, no means to interrupt your ‘date’.

When the rows of stalls start to thin out, Taehyung gently squeezes your hand, voice
muffled by the mask, yet you can see the smile in his eyes. “So, what do you think?”

“It’s phenomenal,” You murmur, eyes wandering around the vibrant atmosphere, mouth
watering at the delicious concoction of street market flavours and aromas. “I am falling in
love with it, I may just have to pack up my stuff and move here.”

“I would like that,” He hums, nudging at your shoulder and erupting a fresh wave of joy
within you, learning that he adores your presence just as much as you do with his own.
But then, he starts to guide you closer to the river, seating you both at a park bench that
looms in solitude within the pale light of the moon, the glowing edge of the markets. “My
parents would always bring me here as a child. There was a Japanese vendor back then,
so we would buy takoyaki and eat it by the river – me, with my banana milk, and my
parents with their tiny glasses soju. It was long before I started auditioning for
entertainment companies, sometimes I wonder where I would be if I had never received
the encouragement from them to do so.”

The way that Taehyung talks about his parents is so heartwarming, fond, that you cannot
help but ask him. “Do they still live in the city?”
And like the flick of a switch, his eyes harden to ice, and you feel regret suddenly drop
like lead into your stomach. The kind of uncertain fear that happens when you think you
are close with someone, but cross an invisible barrier that you had not a clue they put up
between you.

“No, they don’t,” are the only words that Taehyung mutters, glassed eyes distantly
watching the moonlight shimmer on the surface of the river.

In a moment of bravery, biting your nerves at the jugular, you rest your temple against his
shoulder and run your thumb over the knuckles of the hand that you hold. “I’m sorry…”

“No, don’t be, it’s okay,” Taehyung sighs, and you only notice that his mask has been
moved down to his chin by the fact that his voice ceases to maintain a muffled quality,
only notice that he is now staring right at you when you turn to prop your chin up on his
shoulder instead and find yourself nose to nose with him.

Surprise jolts through you, causing you to jump back with a squeak, instantly clapping
your free palm over your mouth. But Taehyung merely grins, the firm facade that he wore
slipping away as effortlessly as oil on water, and you cannot help but truly believe how
handsome he looks like this with the moon shining silver onto his skin, glinting in his gaze,
shining on the lips you were a mere inch away from just seconds ago. The thought
suddenly has heat rushing up your legs, arms, cheeks, only heightened by the low
sentence he speaks next.

“Why did you move?”

Easily, Taehyung slides closer to you, entwined hands resting upon his thigh and your
breath catches in your throat. His free hand comes up to the side of your face, brushing
the loose strands of hair that tangle with your lashes aside, tucking them behind your ear
before his palm caresses your cheek. The world, in that moment, halts in its movement,
a calm lull muting the markets that chitter behind you, silencing the people that celebrate
in the distance, encouraging a haze to loom around the edges of your focus so that your
clear vision is solely pinpointed on Taehyung and the way that he stares at you as if you
created the universe with your bare hands, strung the stars up in the sky. A tingle of
warmth climbs up your wrists, heat prickling within your chest where the butterflies are
caged, their wings fluttering, desperate to finally be free. He starts to lean closer and the
vibrations that skitter along your bones in unadulterated exaltation heighten all the more,
unhurried in his movements, taking his time to study the arch of your brow, the slope of
your nose, the spacing of your eyelashes as they fan out with every blink.

When the bow of his lip tentatively brushes to your own, your blood runs cold.

“Taehyung?” You whisper, the breath of his name ghosting over his lips in warmth and
he cannot help but smile, humming.

“What is it?”
But then you are the one grinning, sheepish, giving his hands one final, gentle squeeze.
A slight frown starts to tug at his brow, confused by your actions until you are answering.

“Sorry to ruin the moment–“

And you are already gone before you can even finish.

03.11.2017 → V85

Sometimes, when you arrive, Taehyung is either not there, or he is stuck between the
jaws of a dream. But you do not mind. On the days that such a thing occurs, you delight
in basking within his space, making yourself a cup of tea and pinching one of his novels,
challenging yourself to understand the Korean sentences while you wait for the familiar
buzz that travels you right back home.

Generally, you are not the type of person to be nosy, since you hone so many secrets
yourself that you would rather not have another stick their business into, so of course
other people would feel the precise same way. But also, you are goddamn hypocrite. At
first, you pinned your curiosity down to genuine, human instinct, though the thought felt
like sandpaper against the backs of your eyes whenever you decided to pry.

To be completely honest, you never uncovered much. Just the scrawl of lyrics in a
battered notebook wedged between the sofa and the wall, or the odd magazine stuffed
at the bottom of a drawer with the words dating scandal imprinted in bold black above a
portrait of Taehyung. It was only when you arrived one afternoon, having risen early to
finish off your assignment – which was certainly bound to not occur once the tingle of
restlessness had nestled home in your limbs – that you discovered a thick, manila folder
perched right at the centre of the dining table, the corners of multiple pages poking out of
the sides, your fingertips itching to take just one peek. Taehyung certainly was not there
to stop you.

But when you had delicately, in an attempt to not disturb the peace, lifted the cover – your
stomach had immediately dropped to your feet at the words that titled the top of the first
page.

Will and Testament.

Before you could even search any further, your hand had flinched away and allowed the
face of the folder to fall back into place. And almost directly after the shock bolted through
your system, as if your seam sensed your distress, your bones were pulled to pieces and
reformed within the dim lamplight of your very own desk, like you had never left in the first
place.
That was the end of your stickybeaking days, but the start of a festering dread that
poisoned your mind, that had you wondering one, single question.

Who was it for?

After that day in the early weeks of October, you attempted to analyse whether anything
felt different about Taehyung, to see if his behaviour had changed at all to suggest
something, anything. You had noticed a slight hesitancy about him, but you rubbed it off
as ambivalence about your near-kiss at the markets, a matter that was not acted upon
since that one night your body decided to travel you home too soon, at the most
inappropriate of moments. A few nights, you had arrived to find him fitfully sleeping,
mumbling in a dialect you did not entirely understand, only catching a certain few words
before they were muffled against his pillowcase or silenced completely by an abrupt shout
that had him bolting upright and you almost falling off of the edge of the bed out of
surprise, quick to regain your balance and watch him hunch over, pinch at the bridge of
his nose before blearily looking up at you. A tense smile would tug at his half-asleep state,
followed by a sorry for frightening you to which you would assure you were fine, only able
to welcome the oblivion of his dreams once again when you would gently stroke your
fingers through his hair.

Mostly, in his subconscious state, he muttered about his parents, and you could not help
but wonder why he was so estranged from them, what put the distance between him and
the two people that held his tiny hand down at the markets when he was just a child, that
grew him into the man he is today.

Courage eats at you in early November, a determination for answers out of your own
selfish concern, though on the day that you finally think today, I will ask him, Taehyung is
nowhere to be seen.

With a heavy sigh, you walk into the kitchen and fill up the kettle, no reminiscent hum
beneath your skin that suggests this trip may be short, so you settle in for the long haul.
But within minutes of you brewing your tea, lazily dipping the bag in and out of the hot
water to disperse the flavour, the front door suddenly opens with a loud bang and it
surprises you so greatly that you scream out loud.

Drawn to the sound, Taehyung watches you silently from the entrance, shoulders heaving
as if he just sprinted to get home. His honey hair is windswept, lips parted as he inhales
gulps of oxygen, thick brows drawn together while his eyes bore into your figure, scanning
from your toes to your face, drinking you in like a man deprived.

You all but forget about the dread, the question like a spike on your tongue, when
Taehyung drops his bags to the floor with a clatter and crosses the room, gathers you
into his arms and kisses you.

The sensation of his mouth against your own is better than anything you could have
possibly imagined. His lips are silken, smooth and damp, moving with a careful fluidity
that melts the skin off your bones, only held together by the placement of his palm on the
small of your back, the other resting on the side of your neck. The tip of his tongue tastes
like coffee faintly veiled by peppermint, travelling a delicious trail across your own, flicking
at the back of your teeth and encouraging you to curl your fingers into the front of his thin
sweater. Ever so gently, his teeth sink into your lower lip, drawing the rosy flesh into his
mouth and concocting a moan from the back of your throat, one that has him drawing you
closer to his body, torsos near melding together.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself,” He murmurs against your lips, kissing you in between.
“Coming home to you just now, it got to me – the fact that I want to arrive home to you
every single day.”

Delighted laughter bubbles in your lungs, a smile curling at the corners of your mouth, still
pressed to his own. It is addicting, having him kiss you senseless, that you simply cannot
stop, even when you try to speak. “Did you run here?”

“Yeah, I had this crazy feeling that you might be home.”

Opening your eyes, you find that he is gazing at you through his lashes, something
peculiar twirling amongst the dark chocolate and although you cannot quite pinpoint what
it is, it resembles the way he had looked at you that one night at the markets.

“Maybe you’re a psychic,” You whisper, but Taehyung certainly knows you are wrong.

Maybe he is just hopelessly in love with you.

15.12.2017 → V104

It takes neither of you long to class yourselves as a relationship, albeit an odd pair on
both ends of the matter, and the desire that crackles with growing intensity between you,
flaring wilder and wilder since the second night that you landed within his apartment, does
not take much longer to act upon either.

When it happens, at long last, nerves seek solace in your throat and Taehyung draws
them out with his lips, exposing them for what they are, revealing them to the shadows of
his bedroom as if to say we know you are there, we are not afraid.

“Stay with me, stay with me,” He hums, laying a patient hand on your quivering stomach,
carving the words into your slick heat with the tip of his tongue. You seek desperate
purchase with your fingertips curling tightly in strands of honey blonde, with the snarl that
rolls from the back of his throat at the demanding action, his mouth opening wider over
your cunt in an urgency, a fervency to taste you all at once. It settles the buzz, the
insistence to lose your bearings on the here and now, to rip you back to where you should
be but no, no you need to be here, need the sight of Taehyung staring at you with a
hunger that licks fire up the nape of your neck, circling in pleasuring promise around your
clit and having you arch your spine in a moan.

“Tae– I need– I need you,” comes in a desperate whimper, and he too, comes up to meet
your mouth in an elegance that has you moaning all over again, tongue sweeping over
your own, thumb brushing at your sensitive nipple. He sinks his teeth into the flesh,
sucking lightly, simultaneously rolling his clothed cock against your wet heat and making
you writhe beautifully beneath him.

“Are you sure?” Taehyung murmurs against your lips, continuing his dizzying
ministrations of grinding into your frantic nerves until you are practically in tears and
gasping yes, yes, yes.

He rolls off of you quickly, discarding off his underwear and you try not to redden at the
sight of your arousal that has dampened the front. Though your attention ceases to remain
on that minuscule matter when Taehyung leans back on the headboard, legs lazily spread
over the mattress, leaking cock held lightly in his shifting palm while he watches you
through heavy lashes. The sight is simply mouthwatering, and you practically scramble
onto his lap when he inclines his chin with a soft tilt of his lips, come take a seat scrawled
in the lines of his knuckles that continue to run smoothly up and down his length.

Gently, you lay your hands upon his shoulders, hovering just so the head of him barely
skims at your folds, and he cranes his neck in a request for your lips, with which you
happily oblige. Now, he moves slower, languid with his mouth that breathes into your own,
kissing the air from your lungs until you are lowering your hips just slightly, whimpering at
the touch of his tip nestling against your entrance. It is almost amazing when the sensation
of losing yourself pricks at your toes that he notices, bites your lip hard until it all but
disappears and he is muttering stay, stay into the corner of your mouth.

“Ready?” Taehyung questions with his palms settling on your hips. “It will hurt a little, but
I’ve got you, baby. I promise.”

You nod, knowing you could take all of the pain in the world at this very moment, anything,
to have him inside of you. “Okay, ready.”

Slowly, Taehyung places firm pressure upon your bones, urging you down, inch by
agonisingly long inch. He takes his time, and you understand why when the first jab of
pain slices through your centre as you take in the head, the stretch a lot more than you
were expecting, but you almost like it – a means of keeping yourself here with your
fingernails imprinting half moons into his skin, already blossoming black and blue in the
shape of your lips. A low moan draws out of his lungs as he presses you down lower,
lower, until you are completely filled to the brim, sitting upon his lap and panting,
expression pinched at the odd combination of pleasure and pain, but Taehyung kisses
the kinks away, smooths out the frown and the curl of your lip so gently that you melt like
candle wax beneath his touch. When he pulls away, lust and concern swallow the dark
chocolate of his eyes, but one look at the sudden determination that straightens your
shoulders and he finds himself smirking.

“If it helps with the pain, you can pull my hair.”

A huff of laughter escapes you, making your core squeeze around him and he groans.
“Are you just saying that as an excuse to make me do it?”

“Up to you,” Taehyung chuckles, so you card your fingers from the front of his fringe, all
the way through to the nape of his neck, heat rushing underneath your skin at the way his
lashes flutter, a growl humming deep in his chest. When you tighten your fist in the honey
strands and tug, his palm comes down on your ass, making you yelp. “Y-Yeah, it was an
excuse.”

Experimentally, you pull at his hair again, a little softer, this time, remaining to elicit a
moan from him as you carefully raise your hips up his cock. It feels incredible, having him
inside of you, pressing against your walls and evoking the most divine of sensations to
skitter along your nerves, swallowing the tingle of losing your bearings entirely, a hook
and anchor that sinks you back down again and again, impetuosity drilling through your
rationale, simply incapable of having enough of him within you all at once.

“I got you,” Taehyung repeats in barely a breath, raising a hand from your hip to caress
the side of your face, already looking so fucked out and close to releasing underneath
you.

You lean forward, pressing your foreheads together, giving yourself to him entirely as he
uses his hold on your body to roll his hips up, into you, exploring depths that cause
wildfires to sweep through your body, stars to collide, blackholes to open and swallow
you whole. He watches you, lashes drooping close when he ventures too deep and the
pleasure becomes overwhelming, though opening once again to watch you, incapable of
getting enough of the sight of your lips glossed and parted, cheeks burning a beautiful
fuchsia that he created, concocted with his mouth and fingers and cock, his pure
existence.

With the hand that cups your face, Taehyung dips the tip of his thumb past your lips,
pushing the pad down on the flat of your tongue before removing it with a lewd pop. The
tips of his fingers blaze down your chest, taking care to squeeze at your breasts before
they hunt further down until they are ghosting over your heat, spreading it wide so that
his thumb can bury itself into the bundle of nerves, drawing quickly about the
circumference, white hot pleasure shooting through your veins like a drug. A whimper
cracks in the back of your throat and you start to meet his thrusts, lowering your hips as
his own rise, reaching a new depth that has your eyes squeezing shut, the stimulation
almost unbearable.
“Let it go, baby,” Taehyung murmurs into the corner of your mouth, lips parted yet not
kissing, just breathing hot air against your skin, grunts vibrating from his teeth into your
flesh. “I won’t lose you. Just let go.”

“Ngh fuck!” You whine, the coils of tension so tight, so near to snapping, unravelling, that
you cannot decipher whether it is your oncoming high or the urge for your body to rip you
back to where you belong. Even with your eyes closed, Taehyung seems to sense your
hesitancy, his hand coming up to grip your jaw, causing your lashes to untangle and find
him staring at you through the fine spaces of his own. Finally, he kisses you properly,
tongue lacing with your own in an urgent fervency, not once averting his gaze, the strokes
that he rolls into you slowing, lengthening in pace and you are so, so close to the edge
that you can taste it.

Taehyung presses the words into the grooves of your lips, laving over them with his
tongue for safekeeping.

“I swear, I got you.”

And that is all you need to fall.

The first thing that you drearily notice when your eyes lethargically open is that the room
around you is familiar, but not your own. The usual summer heat that has the sheets
sticking to your skin with sweat has ceased to a brittle chill, blanketing your bare body in
ice, encouraging you to softly groan in your half-asleep state, fingers itching across the
surface of the mattress for the comfort of your kicked away blankets.

But when your palm comes into contact with smooth flesh, a bolt of electricity surges
through your fingertips, has you sitting up completely straight, awake and alert, staring
down at a blissfully sleeping Taehyung, stealer of warmth with the sheets wrapped tightly
around his figure, puppy snores erupting from his parted lips.

“Oh my god.” You whisper, hands shaking, a grin splitting at your cheeks and you never
realised that a person could smile so early in the morning, so soon after waking, but
maybe that kind of thing only happens when you wake up beside the person you love.
When you somehow manage to keep your feet grounded long enough to stay with him in
the first place.

In the jostling of your sudden movements, Taehyung stirs, wakes with the heels of his
palms burying into his eyes to rub away the haze of sleep. All the while, you stay silent,
waiting, waiting, watching on with the smile that has not yet stopped, forgetting the chill
that raises tiny mountains across your bare skin because this is too good to be true, an
abrupt thought lodging itself into your heart at the fact that maybe it is all a dream until he
is dropping his arms, a palm landing on your thigh, and he jolts with the surprise that had
caught you only moments ago.
When Taehyung looks up at you, it is as though time comes to a standstill, that there is
nothing else in this world that exists outside the two of you in this room. His gaze is woven
with wonderment, adoration, the purest form of elation that has your heart thudding so
fast that you can count the precise number of beats.

“Y-You’re–“ he stammers, but the rest of his words are quick to be silenced by his fingers
snaking around the nape of your neck, drawing you into him until his mouth is against
your own and you can taste still here on the tip of your tongue. The way he kisses you
brings about the sensation of stars colliding, waves crashing against the faces of cliffs –
disastrous and beautiful, oh so magnificent.

He pulls away gasping, lips a little swollen and eyes glassy and the unadulterated sight
of him almost has you in tears. His lips find your flushed cheeks, the crease at the centre
of your brow, your chin, nose, temples, anywhere they can simply touch you, feel you.

“You stayed. You’re really here.”

Taehyung holds you as if you are made of porcelain, a fragile doll that may shatter
between his fingertips if he holds too tight, wishes too hard for you to stay just a little while
longer. Yet you press your lips to the curve of his throat, become consumed by the oaky
aroma of his skin, overwhelmed by the sheer existence of his entire being and how lucky,
beyond blessed you are to have somehow happened upon this very apartment all those
months ago.

The words that you tuck into his skin taste better than any kind of proclamation of love.
They feel private, only applied to the two of you.

“You keep me grounded.”

13.03.2018 → V132

At first, it is a blessing.

Since the night that Taehyung showed you how the stars can be seen within his very own
bedsheets, and the morning after that found you still in his arms, your trips through the
seams became much alike. He would depart to attend works matters at lunch and arrive
home near midnight to find you still home, curled up, half-asleep on the sofa. You had to
start calling your parents to let them know that your time away from home – as they liked
to say – was stretching to unusual lengths, but you never told them precisely where you
were going. Though even so, it allowed the both of you to spend longer periods together,
capable of staying the night more than just once, of waking up with that same feeling of
being in love and knowing, although he has not voiced such words to you, that he loves
you too in full, complete redamancy. You are able to make breakfast and dinner together
in one whole trip, can go for drives down to the coast where the beaches resemble a
home you have not returned to since yesterday, capable of making love on five different
surfaces of his apartment in one, long and lustrous night– and boy, make love you do,
intimacy constantly crackling like electricity between the two of you, forever eager to have
your hands on one another, to be a part of the other.

But you figure something is very, very wrong when the extent of your visits last for hours
upon hours, whole days on some occasions, yet start to occur only in broad vicinity.

Near to daily visits become twice a week, once a week, once a fortnight, and although
Taehyung remains silent when you arrive in his arms after ten days of being without him,
the fear that hones thickly in the pit of his stomach resembles your own.

It feels as if time is beginning to run out, the one thing you desired most when you were
first cursed with such a quarrelsome malady as not being able to remain grounded for too
long – but now that your feet are starting to take their roots in the earth, dread weighs
heavy on your shoulders.

Taehyung finally cracks on the day of the question his lips had washed out to sea weeks,
months ago. The sight that had imprinted into your mind beneath the cover of a manila
folder before he soothed the burn marks with his kiss.

When you think that you have seen every possible side of Taehyung, he always,
somehow, manages to surprise you beyond compare. So when you arrive in the early
hours of Tuesday, the silk slip nightdress that you had first visited in sitting upon your
shivering hips, it is to find the man that you love sitting lifeless at the dining table, his
forehead pressed to the wood, that same fucking folder that ran ice through your blood
spread out amongst the surface, papers scattered, overlapping and smelling of death.

All you can do is stand in shock, for he does not move, does not make any kind of
approach or acknowledgement towards you as he usually does when the seam brings
you to him. Your hands tremble, heart skittering to a stop, and not because of the cold,
nor the sensation of your feet dragging you right back home.

“Taehyung?” Your voice cracks, sounds like a scream in the silence of his quiet
apartment, but is barely above a whisper. Suddenly, in a panic, you rush to his side and
crouch down, shaking his shoulders. “Taehyung?! Oh my god.”

You would have thought him dead if not for the slight groan that erupts from his chest,
the clinking of glass at his feet where you flit your eyes down, just enough to notice the
empty bottles that have been carelessly dropped to the floorboards. He is drunk,
completely wasted, and it takes all that you can to not yell at him when he lazily lifts his
head, notices the fear that is painted across your expression, an unsure anger swimming
beneath the surface.

“Y/N,” Taehyung mumbles, breath holding the strong scent of alcohol, his stare dazed
until his eyes are suddenly screwing close, expression pinching in an agony that roots so
deeply within you, it feels as though it belongs to your own heart. A sob rackets out of his
lungs, fresh tears beginning to pour down his cheeks and your fingers helplessly fret to
wipe them away, voice thick in your throat.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

Taehyung leans into your shoulder, gasping, hot and heavy against your throat and you
soothe your fingertips through his hair, taming the distressed strands and you cannot tell
if it is a method to calm him, or yourself. “I-I lost them today.”

“Who, Taehyung?” You coax softly, but even though you do not want to admit it, you think
you already know.

The silence that drifts between you unsettles the nerves that dance sickly within your
stomach, taunting you with the horrible possibilities, the undeniable truth that you
subconsciously understood long ago, but never thought to face. That he never had the
courage to tell you. When he finally speaks, the words are so broken that you feel the
tears stream down your own face, dripping onto the shoulder of his liquor-stained shirt as
you hold him tighter.

“My parents– T-They’re dead, Y/N. They’re fucking dead because of me.”

It is as though the world is falling apart, building for building, tree for tree, razed down to
the soil by the ferocious fires of his internal suffering, finally unleashed. The worst part is
that there is nothing you can do, nor say, that will ease the agony that clings to his tone,
stabs razors through his heart, just letting him dig his nails into the bare flesh of your
shoulder blades, biting your tongue against the pain because he needs this, to let it out,
to expose the raw truth for what it is.

“They were on their way t-to my performance– Not t-the group stage, m-my solo–“
Taehyung gasps, almost shouts, and you do nothing to stop him. “A t-truck went through
the fucking stop sign, just went straight through it a-and took my fucking parents with it!”

Taehyung howls into your body and you absorb the words, hiccuping through your own
sobs, everything starting to add up. The wills and testaments, the nightmares. It all makes
so much sense. The vivacious man made of golden sunlight itself that you have known
up until this point was living a lie, hiding a truth so arduous, so harrowing beneath the
layers upon layers of his masks of semblance with an acute precision that you never
would have thought twice. That you most likely never would have discovered if your seam
had not decided to travel you here on this day, the one that exposes him at his weakest,
in his truest of states.

You are frightened than the smallest movement will have him shattering, so you lean back
at a measured pace, hands slow as they slip down to find his wet cheeks and draw his
face away from your neck. The sight of him with blood red, teary eyes, lower lip quivering,
has your heart smashed to smithereens.
“Taehyung,” You gulp, trying to keep his straying gaze. “You can’t put that on yourself. It
wasn’t your fault, none of you could have ever known it would happen. The blame belongs
to the truck driver, not you, not you at all, okay? This is not a burden that you deserve to
carry, you never could have known.”

Words cease to flow from his voice, only broken gasps as he finally locks his eyes on you,
focusing on the one thing in his life that is a solid, a constant. Minutes pass, your knees
growing weak and achy in your crouch, but the pain is far from your thoughts,
concentrating solely on his slowing breaths, the gradual, yet steady effort that it takes to
stop his tears. A stray droplet follows the silver trails that glimmer on his cheeks every
now and then, but for the most part, he has calmed down, looking so beyond worn out
that you wish to take him to bed, tuck him in. The shock of the situation is still settling
within your bones, the surprise hitting tenfold when he speaks again in a low rasp.

“I don’t know if I can stand to lose you either.”

Wiping away your own tears, you press your forehead against his. “I’m not going
anywhere, Taehyung. I’m not leaving you, okay?”

“Yes, you will, Y/N. I know you can’t help it, but you will.”

The truth hurts more than the venom that laces his voice, that he will regret later on when
the seam decides to steal you away once again, who knows how long for, this time. But
he is not making way for empty promises, not today.

The only thing the two of you can do is make the most of the time you have left, sitting
beside the deathbed of your love, holding its frail hand, not too tight, but enough to
whisper please, please do not let go.

30.07.2018 → V151

Today, you think, is the day.

Taehyung does not realise, and you do not speak any word of it, not wanting to ruin your
time. You do not know how you know, there is just a distant feeling that unpleasantly
hums across your skin, attempting to be comforting, but only helping to agitate you all the
more.

This is your second summer together, you realise fondly, almost adoring the sweltering
heat because it means you are with him. All of the windows are wide open, the radio
adding a soundtrack to every passing minute. Taehyung is crouched shirtless before a
small oscillating fan, eyes closed against the dry, mildly-less-than-hot air that it blows onto
his face, stirring his golden hair about. Greedily, you drink in the sight of him like this, the
skin of his back glowing with sweat, muscles stretched in his hunch and it is not long
before you walk over and slouch yourself over him, earning a disgusted groan on his part
as steaming hot flesh comes into contact with flesh.

“Get off.”

Koala mode kicks in and you cling tighter. “Make me.”

With another grunt, Taehyung collapses you both onto the floorboards completely, rolling
onto his back and you promptly settle yourself on top, torsos melting together. He peers
at you through heavy lidded lashes, frowning.

“You are so sweaty,” He mutters, running his thumb across your lower lip until you bite at
the tip. “Ouch. So first, you suffocate me, and now you are trying to eat me? Is this some
kind of fucked up demand for sex?”

Grinning, you release him, sliding up so that your face hovers directly above his own.
“Well, when you put it so romantically–“

“Oh shut up,” He smirks, snaking his palm around your neck and bringing your mouths
together. Sweat and heat make him taste like salt, spice, laving his tongue over your own
in leisurely motions, a languid sweetness that you adore. You try not to think about this
possibly being one of the last, that you should savour this moment.

Instead, you draw back, pecking him once, twice, before you place your hands either side
of his head and push yourself upward, a mischievous smile colouring your lips, concealing
a melancholy that he does not think to look for. “We should cool off.”

“I honestly don’t see how having sex will encourage that.”

You smack his shoulder and he mocks pain. “When did I ever mention sex in the past five
minutes?”

“You are literally grinding your ass against my dick right now. I didn’t think that was a
goddamn implication for popping down to the store to get ice-cream.”

“Ah, you are so disgusting,” You say matter-of-factly as you get to your feet, not missing
the impressive grin that he displays at you speaking his native tongue, no concern about
you blatantly insulting him.

“Only you for you, darling,” He coos right back, sticking out his hand for you to help him
up. With a roll of your eyes, you grip as tightly as anyone can when their palms are as
wet as the ocean itself, tugging him up with a grunt. The bastard provides little assistance,
rather letting you haul most of his weight upright, giving you a kiss in compensation. “How
do you suppose we cool off then?”
Tapping your lips with your forefinger, a grin reveals itself beneath. “A cold bath sounds
nice, right? Closer than the beach.”

“The bath it is then!” Taehyung roars with a newfound ferocity, sweeping you up into his
arms bridal style, a squeal erupting from your lungs as he carries you through to his
bedroom, the bathroom. Once within the confines of tiles that feel a degree cooler than
the living space, Taehyung props you on the vanity and leans down to blast the cold water
on.

Patiently, you marvel him while he strips, only wearing loose canvas shorts and his
underwear, yet he makes a show of it nonetheless, waggling his eyebrows when you are
caught eyeing his crotch, coyly grinning. Completely bare, he saunters over to you,
creeping his fingers around to your spine where he unclips your bra with practiced ease,
kissing you once on the lips before he ducks down and chastely presses his mouth to
each of your breasts, drawing a quiet sound of delighted pleasure from your lungs that
almost goes unheard by the rushing water. Gingerly taking your hands, Taehyung helps
you down from the sink, swaying your hips together to the music that lightly hums over
the filling of the bath, fingers fiddling with the clasp of your shorts before he is pushing
them down your thighs, dropping them to your ankles with your panties and then he is
properly kissing you, suddenly not minding the sweat that he was whining about before,
bringing your body forward to completely fit with his own.

He kisses you with an urgency that hones deep within your soul, and you return the
fervency in full, straying your mind away from the thought that his lips are mouthing his
desire, while your own are saying your inevitable goodbye. Though you are broken
completely out of your reverie, the intoxication of Taehyung and his tongue, when you
feel the entirely welcome sensation of ice hitting your feet.

“Shit!” He yelps, letting go of you completely to shut off the water that waterfalls over the
edges of the tub. The both of you stare at the mess dumbfounded before you glance at
each other, sputtering into the kind of laughter that you feel within your bones, as if the
sound has been pulled from the absolute depths of your lungs.

“We’ll clean it up after,” Taehyung suggests, his palm lightly smacking your ass. “Go on,
get in.”

“You first, you’re bigger,” You state, and he mocks offence.

“Are you calling me fat?”

“Oh my god, Taehyung. Get in the damn water before the humidity turns it into a hot
spring.”

Huffing, he obeys to your word and steps his limber legs into the tub, the wounded facade
cracking when more water flows over the edge and he giggles. Honestly, he looks like a
giant child, sinking down into the coolness with an exaggerated sigh, resting his head
back against the tiles before gesturing his wet hand down to his submerged thighs with a
lewd wink and smirk.

“Come sit on my lap, pretty girl.”

Rolling your eyes, you step between his legs, taking his hand that he offers to keep your
balance. The icy water lapping at your knees instantly soothes your heated skin. “I should
sue you for being so dirty.”

“I knew you just wanted me for my money.”

“Don’t say that,” You mumble sternly once you are perched in a comfortable position upon
him, softly biting the tip of his nose before you nestle back against his chest, sinking
deeper into the cold ripples and pleasantly sighing. “God, this feels so good.”

“You feel better,” Taehyung hums, kissing your ear and causing a shudder to crawl up
your spine, the tips of his fingers circling your breast beneath the water. Then, his voice
grows louder. “Can I ask you something?”

Concern simmers beneath your skin, but you gulp and nod anyway. “Tell me.”

“I know with your certain superpower–“ You promptly roll your eyes at his choice of words–
“It makes seeing me all the more convenient, but have you ever considered maybe…
Moving here? Now that it is beginning to… You know?”

Twisting so that you can face him, shock paints your features. “Y-You want me to live with
you?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung shrugs with a small smile. “I know that sounds unbelievably idealistic,
but have you at least considered it?”

“Of course, I have,” You flush at your immediate answer, ignoring the sick feeling that
stirs in your gut because of all the days he had to bring up such a matter, it was today,
the worst of all. “I-I mean it would be too expensive for me to actually do it, but I have
thought about it, too many times to count.” The end of your sentence is an attempted
laugh, but it strangles somewhere in your throat on its way out. “I practically live here
already, anyhow.”

Taehyung idly smooths his palms up your sides, across your stomach, and you try to not
forget this feeling, the tender warmth that his touch creates on your body. “I would meet
the payments for you. I would want to do that, anything in this world if it meant being with
you, Y/N.”

Immediately, you shake your head. “That feels wrong.”

“Maybe, but is anything about us really right?” Taehyung murmurs back before placing a
kiss upon your temple, gripping your hips between his fingers and twisting you so that
you lay against him once more. “I don’t know. Just think about it, okay?”

All you can do is meekly nod, no longer trusting your voice.

The two of you lay within the bath until your body heat evens out the temperature of the
water, creating a lukewarm concoction that makes it feel as if you are swimming in your
own sweat, ultimately forcing the two of you out and onto the sopping tiles. Taehyung
drapes you in a fluffy towel, rubbing it so vigorously against your muscles that it tickles,
softening you into a fit of laughter before you return the favour to him, not taking long to
dry with the humid air already starting to creep back up on you. He retrieves a mop and
multiple old rags, dumping the tattered cloths into your arms once you are clothed again
before he starts on mopping up the worst of the spillage, getting onto his hands and knees
with you to dry up the rest with the towels.

As you scrub your hands raw, relishing in the beautiful soundtrack of Taehyung singing
an odd cleaning song in Korean that he seems to make up as he goes, you try to think
that this is enough, that there is nothing you missed out. Certainly, there is so much more
that you could have potentially done, but today has been so utterly and entirely the two
of you, your relationship, that you forlornly attempt to be satisfied, to bite your tongue and
taste the bittersweet truth because there will always have been more that you could have
said, could have touched, could have loved. There were so many could’s and should’s –
but time, is fickle, just like your seams, and there will never, ever be enough in this world
to express the endless ways that you love the man who glows like sunlight directly before
you, who drives happiness through your veins, who makes you so, completely whole after
spending too long as, not a half, but a multitude of pieces, scattered through your
bedroom, the meadow, the library, his very own home. He reached you from all of those
places and put you back together again, made you into a woman that he could devote
himself to.

A light tingle itches across your skin, and you almost want to scream, dig your nails into
the flesh and peel it away. Just to be rid of the sensation that you know means the end.
Your voice shudders, small and hopeless.

“It’s happening.”

“Now? You’re leaving all of this mess to me?” Taehyung playfully jokes, leaning on his
knees, sitting back on his heels and looking up at you. But his grin falters at your paling
expression. “Hey, are you okay? What–“

But before he can finish, you are crossing the short distance between your bodies,
clasping his face between your palms and kissing him with all that you have got, your
eyes remaining open, incapable of bearing to be succumbed to the shadows in these
final, desperate moments. Swallowed by despair, you memorise the warmth of his parted
mouth, the sensation of his plush, rosy lips pushing gently back against your own, moving
in practised synchronisation, carving pure adoration into your heart. He too, keeps his
eyes slightly open, staring at you with a slight pinch to his brow, confused by your abrupt
approach but nonetheless melting into you, observing with those dark chocolate eyes that
you love beyond compare, that you swear to every entity, every single star, you will find
again.

When you part, you do not realise you are crying until you see the realisation dawn on his
features, and you can barely choke the words out before the tingling becomes too
overwhelming. This is it, this is it.

“Don’t give up on us.”

Taehyung’s lips start to move, but his answer goes unheard.

06.10.2018 → V151

You cannot bear to think of the last time you saw Taehyung. It hurts too much, cuts blades
of ice through your skin that tear your heart in two, his face already blending in murky
waters that make you question is that the shape of his nose? Did his lips truly look like
that when they stretched into a smile?

His face never appeared on the television anymore, the drama reaching its end long ago,
as if the universe were simply adding to your punishment, the endless downward spiral
that started on the day you came crashing back into your room, limbs feeling like they
had been embedded with a thousand glass shards, knees and hair still damp, a scream
ripping from your lungs that had your throat sore for days.

But not pain ever compared to the separation, the loss, of the one thing in this world that
kept you grounded. You had left your heart on the opposite end of treacherous oceans
that you could not cross, that your soul refused to return you to.

Just when Taehyung was starting to make you believe that this awful, awful gene was the
blessing of the best kind, it revealed its true face, reminded you that it was nothing more,
nor less than a wretched curse set on tearing the happiness from beneath your feet.

It took days before your parents noticed something was off – when your messages were
short, one-worded, and gradually, the phone calls went unanswered. They found you a
lifeless heap within your flat, buried in unwashed sheets, smelling like death yet still barely
breathing. No matter how desperately they attempted to coax what had happened out of
you, your chapped, blood bitten lips stayed shut, apathy swallowing your dull gaze. You
hated yourself for treating them like that, as if they were merely nothing more than specks
of dust floating about your periphery, but you could hardly bring yourself to care, either.
By the second month of repetition, of getting nowhere when they try to feed you, bathe
you, urge explanations to form with your tongue, they give you up to their last stretch of
hope, their final hand that they have to offer.

Your grandfather stays silent for an entire month. Never demanding anything of you,
never opening up questions. He simply takes over the role of your parents, but rather,
without any voice. It makes you feel awful, ignoring him, letting him do everything for you
when you know he has bad knees and a progressively deteriorating spine, but you are a
heartbroken monster and the suffering digs its vicious claws deep into your soul, holding
on so tight that it physically pains you.

Though at long last, on a day that you think may be Saturday, your grandfather arrives
within your desolate apartment and comes straight to your room. No opening of blinds,
no turning on the kettle for tea that you refuse because god, that is the worst reminder of
them all. He simply walks in and with the effort of old age, sits down upon the edge of
your bed and watches at you, a despairingly hollow shell of the girl he once knew, who
he brought up and taught with his very own heart.

“Love,” Your grandfather soothes, his fingers gently petting your matted hair. “Please, tell
me what’s wrong. We’re so worried about you, we just want to help.”

The sound of your voice hurts, crackles and rasps. “Can’t help.”

A sigh slips from his shoulders and he shuffles closer, giving your shoulder a tender,
encouraging squeeze, paying no mind to the way you flinch because such an intimate
sensation reminds you of golden hair and sunlight, of hands that engulf your own, lips
that fit perfectly against the dip of your throat.

“That’s okay, I understand, sweetheart,” He nods, clasping his hands atop his lap. “But I
truly think this is something that you need to get off your chest, a piece of you that you
need to release, whatever it is that is weighing you down. So take your time, and when
you’re ready, I will be waiting.”

With the trailing of his words, your grandfather shakily gets to his feet, showing himself
out of your room. A small pull of regret, sympathy, loops tightly around your heart at how
selfishly, curtly, you denied his helping hand, the lifeboat that crashed among your
relentless shores, the final solace for hope. You do not know how long you lay there for,
time a lost cause after you abandoned faith in the number of seconds in a minute, the
number of minutes in an hour, the promise of never-ending handfuls of time when you
received all but that, though you deem it to have been a while for the sparse light that
slips through the splits in your bedroom blinds fade to darkness, and you still have not
heard the click of the front door.

When you start to move, you feel hundreds of years old, bones popping and burning,
muscles aching and weak, almost collapsing when your feet try to balance on the
floorboards though you manage to maintain your centre of gravity. Slow and steady, you
stumble out of your room, wincing against the blaring fluorescent lighting of the living
space that glows at the end of the hallway yet making your way towards it. When you
reach the entrance, your eyes take longer than usual to adjust, so adapted to the shadows
of your bedroom that your pupils feel exposed, and when your focus regains, you discover
your grandfather right where you expected him to be – sitting at the dining table, staring
at nothing in particular until his gaze lands on you.

He keeps his eyes trained on your movements as you pull out a chair, sit down. Once you
make yourself as comfortable as you can be, he holds out his hand that you immediately
take, and just like that, you tell him absolutely everything.

You tell him about the first night that your body was projected across land and sea to find
an anchor within the apartment of the Korean boy, Kim Taehyung, who revealed to you a
world you had once never known. He taught you the strings of love, the tunes of true
elation and lust, the intensity of growing to understand a person that is not yourself. You
tell him about how you kept going back, over and over again as if your seam always
wished to have you spending time there, learning about this man and his gorgeous smile,
how so unalike he was to the personality he revealed to the public and it made you all the
fonder. You tell him how you fell hopelessly in love, incapable of doing anything but such
a thing, for he had woven the ribbons of his heart with your own and there was no turning
back once that knot was tightened in place. And no matter how much it tears you from
the inside out to speak word of it, you tell him about the downfall, the sudden shift that
occurred, not with the two of you, but with your seams – how they had started to become
longer, irregular, painfully stretched apart like a twine pulled too tight until it snapped, it
snapped, it snapped and now here you are, oceans away, nearing the brink of death
because if the one man you thought could keep you grounded could not, then nothing in
this world would be able to.

By the time that you finish, you are a bawling mess, hiccuping until the words can no
longer form and your grandfather only lets you go for the briefest of moments to retrieve
tissues. Dabbing your face, he pensively sighs, still processing all of the information you
had kept within you for over a year and a half, finally gushing out in a perilous storm.

“The seams, although horrible, terrible things, work in the oddest of ways.” Your
grandfather starts after your heaves have slowed, breathing calmed to a mild quiver.
“There was a reason that they took you there that day, and why they kept bringing you
back too. The love that the two of you seem to share is something much greater than a
curse that found you through generations upon generations, like modern day soulmates,
the two of your hearts crossed barriers that no other being could, and you happened upon
each other just like that. Destiny knew that the two of you belonged together, although
complete worlds apart, you had a secret advantage that made finding each other all the
more easier.”

“Y/N, if there is anything I can promise you in this world, in these morbid lives that you
and I live–” He speaks, the usual tremor that held his old, frail voice straightening out,
vocal strings tightening– “It is that if what you had with this man was truly love, then you
will find each other again. Somehow, someday, you will.”

19.08.2019 → V151

If it truly was love, you will find each other again.

By the fourth month without him, it is like a twisted, desolate mantra. You repeat it when
you wake up, when you brush your teeth, when you get back into bed and pray, pray,
pray. Urging for that tingle to take a hold of your limbs, to pull you apart, piece by agonising
piece – but it no longer takes you across the seas, ceases to bring you to his awaiting
arms. There is no sign of him, not a sound, and you truly, completely start to lose hope.
You try not to think of it as a bad thing.

The worst part is when you start to visit the other places that used to stir fondness within
you again.

Travelling, slipping only occurs every few or so weeks now, and it is like a sick, horrible
punch of anticipation after associating the prickling sensation with Taehyung for such a
long time, of unrequited hope that makes it all the worse when you arrive in the desolate
meadow, the empty library. It increasingly embitters you, has you screaming on your
knees and culling the wildflower roots from their soils, tearing the paperbacks down from
their neat lines on the wooden shelving, leaving a disastrous mess in your wake for
somebody else to find, to deal with. It is as if the seams are taunting you in their final,
withering moments, not trying to take you to these places that once brought you such
serenity, but rather shoving them in your face in a blatant proclamation of you are right
back where you started, where you should have stayed all along.

If it truly was love, you will find each other again.

The seams leave you completely when the seventh month arrives. You are labelled as
one of ‘the lucky ones’ for being capable of shaking off the curse, yet you cannot help but
laugh at the sardonicism, the sheer morbid irony of the fact that you truly feel as if you
are the most unfortunate person to exist. Because who can ever call somebody lucky
when they fall into the oceans of love, only to be dragged straight back out?

Though this, you decide, is the turning point, the time to start anew.

The words your grandfather spoke cease to be a mantra, but rather a distant reminder, a
lighthouse perched on the cliff you once fell from, infinitely rotating, seeking a ship that
never makes itself known among the waves. Yet the light keeps spinning, searching, no
matter if you start to pick yourself up from your knees, dust off your clothes, start behaving
like a normal human being once more. Friends that you abandoned welcome you back
with understanding, open arms, your parents, although still not having grasped entirely
what occurred, do the precise same – always calling, dropping by, making sure you have
not tripped once again, lapsed back into that near death way of living. College becomes
something that you can focus on with a straight mind, picking your grades right back up
from where they had drastically dropped, finishing assignments with a determination you
once never attained, becoming a socialite within your classes rather than the girl who
would always sprint out of her seat for unexplained reasons, who kept curled into herself,
who once never had a voice. It feels normal, the way your life is supposed to be.

The air starts to taste lovely within your lungs. It no longer feels like lead, nor the sighing
wonder of what Taehyung is doing right now, where he is, whether he is piecing himself
back together the same way as you.

Above all, you hope that he is happy and learning to live on.

If it truly was love, you will find each other again.

Ten months rest lightly upon your shoulders, barely there, but remembering, reminiscing.
It no longer hurts.

Sundays become your favourite day.

There is something about them, in their laziness, the anticipated sleep in and the
haphazard brunch. They are most beautiful in spring mornings with the golden sunlight
that washes your apartment in streams of gold, melting the floorboards into caramel that
soften beneath the soles of your bare feet. Coffee is your newfound acquired taste, the
rich warmth of the beans a vibrant waking for your soul, a buzz that gets your fingers
tapping and your mind reeling with motivation to plan, work, see. It is the first part of your
day, walking out into the kitchen and flicking the kettle on, filling a mug with spoonfuls of
the roast and a splash of cream. While you wait for the water to boil, you stretch your
sleep-heavy limbs, let the sun embrace you in all of her radiance, tickling your cheeks
with wake up, wake up, it is a brand new day!

This particular Sunday is no different. You wake before eight, untangle yourself from the
binds of your sheets by half past and immediately head for the kettle, switching it on just
as the loudest series of knocks that have ever graced your apartment are rapped against
your front door. For a brief, few seconds, you stare at the handle from across the room,
eyebrows knitting together as you mentally card through all of the possibilities of who in
their right mind would be at your door before nine o’clock on a Sunday until the alarms go
off in your mind within an instant.
“Oh, shit!” You shout at yourself, slapping your palm against your forehead as the plans
you had made with one of your friends to go out for breakfast suddenly surfaces within
your thoughts, and you, thoughtless, airhead you, had totally forgot.

At lightning speed, you dart into the bathroom to ensure your hair and face appear
somewhat decent before you come shooting back out to the sound of the door being
knocked at a greater intensity, more demanding. Taking one deep breath, you unlatch the
locks and swing the door open with the sincerest of apologies waiting on your lips.

“Hey, oh my god I am so–“ but you do not, cannot finish, not when the air is sucked right
out of your lungs because the person standing across the threshold is most certainly not
the friend you were expecting, not at all.

It is him.

His hair has lost its honey shade, now similar to the colour of his eyes, a dark, ruffled
chocolate that if anything in regards to style, appears a little longer. The shape of his face
is more refined with the loss of weight, cheeks slightly hollowing, eyes hard and consumed
by a determination that seems to have brewed for the longest of times. The golden glow
to his skin has dulled, merely an inch of its usual radiance, unexposed to the light that
brings it a warmth that you have touched, kissed more times that you can count. There
are so many differences, things that shadow the man you used to know, yet the being
that stands before you is completely and entirely him.

Before you can speak, Taehyung is pulling you toward him and crashing your bodies
together, completely collapsing into you, hugging you so firmly that you cannot breathe
but such a thing is pointless when you are with him anyway. A sob finds its way into your
throat, pouring out in disbelief as the man you tried to stop loving makes no room for
space between you, breathes you in with his nose tucked into the strands of your hair,
only pulling back to stare at you, drink in the features of your face that he could never
stop thinking about, devoted his existence to finding once again.

“I’m sorry,” You cry, and he presses you to him all the tighter. “I’m so sorry that I–“

“It’s okay, everything is okay now,” Taehyung hushes you between kisses, tears of his
own brimming at the corners of his eyes, and you cannot describe how beautiful his mouth
feels against your own, as if you are ascending to heaven itself. “I love you. I should have
told you before I lost you, but I love you so much, more than anything in this world. I love
you.”

The elation that fills your body at the sweet intoxication of the words has you trembling,
mumbling them right back into the grooves of his lips, digging the three syllables into his
shoulder blades with your fingertips. Taehyung kisses you with a fervency that neither of
you had known, driving you absolutely senseless until you stand completely still,
embraced, together.
“Ever since that day in July, I have been searching, looking endlessly for you.” Taehyung
strokes his hands up and down your spine, over the bumps of your ribs and hips,
anywhere that he can touch and caress after living so long without you. The words are
hot against your ear, the only reconciliation that this might be real, it truly may all be
happening. “I abandoned my work – everything. I couldn’t get you out of my head, or my
heart. Nothing felt right without you by my side, so I had to at least try, no matter if you
had moved on. I hoped that for you, but a terrible, selfish side of me also hoped that you
would wait.”

The sound of his voice is divine, rolling over your skin in satin waves of adoration, bleeding
between your bones. “I missed you so much that it hurt – waking up every single day and
knowing you were gone was absolute agony. But god, seeing you right here, right now,
every fucking second was worth it. Nothing can compare to the way you make me feel. I
have lost so much in my life, Y/N, I was never going to willingly lose you too without a
fight.”

“Please tell me I’m not dreaming, that this is not some sick nightmare,” You hiccup into
his shoulder, inhaling and god, if this truly is just a figment of your imagination, then it has
pinpointed the delicate aroma of his cologne so perfectly that it hurts to think that this is
anything but real.

“I’m here, Y/N.” Taehyung breathes into your ear, holds you as if he promises to never,
ever let you go again. “I’m here, I promise. I didn’t give up, I never could.”

Leaning back, you stare at him through glassy eyes, running your thumb across his cheek
and he presses against your palm, turns his chin to kiss the lines though never taking his
gaze off of you. This is real, he is here, he is home.

When you speak, it sounds familiar to your ears, but belongs to his voice – has, for every
single time that you arrived home to his arms.

“What took you so long?”