Let Us

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/5208551.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Relationship: Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V
Character: Jeon Jungkook, Kim Taehyung | V
Stats: Published: 2015-11-14 Words: 3040

Let Us
by mindheist

Summary

A relationship is a two-way street.

Notes
See the end of the work for notes

be friends

“Let’s be friends,” Taehyung says, and it’s a lost art of introductions that Jeongguk no longer
knows.

Taehyung is nineteen and Jeongguk is eighteen and all he knows is questions of his hometown and
his major, the sudden demand to be part of the in-crowd and not the out-crowd, to seem cool, to be
likable, to be nice and funny and outgoing and all sorts of other adjectives that are absolutely not
Jeon Jeongguk at all. Funny, perhaps, is applicable, and for the first time since arriving here he
feels like it’s okay to be funny around Taehyung.

Jeongguk is a small stranger in a strange land with two left feet and it is lucky Taehyung is his
Cheshire Cat, his Mad Hatter, and his White Rabbit all at once. The first time Jeongguk works up
the courage to ask to eat with his crowd at lunch, Taehyung laughs and asks him,

“What took you so goddamn long?”

as if he’s been waiting for Jeongguk to fall into his life all this time.

And fall Jeongguk does, headlong, with a crash-bang of curiosity and perhaps maybe a touch of
rebellion. His hallmates don’t know why he makes friends with a bunch of upperclassmen but it
doesn’t stop the girls from trying to get his number (one of them does, eventually, because she is in
his level 1 chemistry lab and they both need a C- so they don’t flunk out of college).

Being friends with Taehyung means adventures everyday, ones that taste of hot cement under the
soles of his feet or fast food at midnight, this is so bad for me; Jeongguk has never been out at 1
AM drunk and laughing as he stumbles against Taehyung’s side, slurring sorry, sorry, you had to
take care of me again, somehow that’s usually my job. Taehyung hitches Jeongguk’s arm more
securely around his neck and makes a noise like how rolling eyes would sound. “It’s not a job.” It
never has been. “Being a friend means doing this because I want to.”

It’s in those times, in Jeongguk’s first year, when he’s drunk, that he hears that soft, special edge to
Taehyung’s voice that he only has for Jeongguk. So quiet that, perhaps, Jeongguk hears what he
wishes to hear, catches himself wishing for a fleeting dream.

Let’s be friends, says Taehyung, and splashes through Jeongguk’s quiet little soul to paint all his
roses red.

be together

“Let’s be together,” Taehyung says, and Jeongguk has never known a life so rich in color.

It takes a whole year and a half and a major change—art, because Jeongguk loves himself enough
to leave science behind before he has to watch his GPA crash and burn like the little model biplane
he’d made as a kid in elementary school, before he discovered the Internet and never studied a
chapter of academic material again in his life. Taehyung laughed aloud at this story the first time
he’d told him, and his laugh was filled with glittering joy that made Jeongguk think of brass and
amber.

It takes a whole year and a half and a lot of little not-so-mistakes that the both of them pass off as
happy accidents and never speak of again. Jeongguk walks across campus in the dead of night
because Taehyung’s dog collapsed and had to be put down, and the first person he calls is
Jeongguk—at 3 AM, because he knows Jeongguk will have his phone’s ringtone on. Taehyung
cries and cries until Jeongguk’s shirt is soaked and sticky, until all of his sorrow tangles in the
threads of the fabric and can’t hurt him anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he hiccups, voice thick. “I know how you hate being woken up.”

It’s okay, Jeongguk almost says, should have said. Instead, he presses his lips to Taehyung’s
forehead and feels Taehyung hiccup in his arms that has nothing to do with his tears.

It takes a whole year and a half of what seems like the most absurd dance Jeongguk has ever
carried, one where he knows all the steps but is completely lost, too. A whole silly year and a half
of Jeongguk standing at the dancing fish fountain at the center of campus, tossing in his loose won
coins and hoping for a happy ending. Lost, until Taehyung finally takes his hand when Jeongguk is
painting, bent over a canvas of watercolor paper, and holds his palm against his own. Taehyung’s
hand is big, warm, and Jeongguk tries not to let the sudden aching throb in his chest make his hand
shake where it is poised like a held breath over his paints.

Let’s be together, says Taehyung, and spills his soft red into Jeongguk’s blue to make a purple fit
for velvet-caped royalty.

sleep together

“Let’s sleep together,” Taehyung says, and Jeongguk feels naked before he’s even shed one bit of
clothing.

They kiss, as they do most days. Taehyung’s arms are wrapped around Jeongguk’s neck where
they lie in his bed, tangled up in blankets and forgotten frustrations from their days, and Taehyung
only moves to pull back when Jeongguk stops kissing him. It isn’t that he’s shocked, or even
surprised, and he’s definitely thought about it, but here it is, now—in words, as if Jeongguk should
be thrown off by them, as if they hadn’t gotten here if Taehyung hadn’t said,

let’s!

“Yes?” Taehyung asks, as Jeongguk searches his face, head still resting in his pillows as Taehyung
traces the outline of his mouth with the tip of his finger. He dips his head and presses a kiss on
Jeongguk’s chin, then another one in the corner of his mouth. They’re so gentle that they’re the
barest flutters of warmth, shadows of Taehyung on his skin.

Of course, yes. Of course. Taehyung lets Jeongguk slide his clothes off, two hands stroking up the
plane of Taehyung’s back as they sit up in bed. Taehyung tosses his shirt behind him, shimmying
out of his pants before he’s climbing back into Jeongguk’s lap to kiss more.

“You’re too clothed,” Jeongguk says, realizing the problem that disrobing means less kissing, and
more kissing means less disrobing. It’s a trade-off, but fortunately for him it only lasts the few
moments Jeongguk takes to pull his sweater over his head as Taehyung makes good work on his
pants.

Taehyung holds Jeongguk to his body and Jeongguk holds Taehyung to his; it’s not so much one of
them giving and the other taking as it is finally being able to be each other’s. It feels right, with
Taehyung leaving a feathery trail of hickeys along Jeongguk’s shoulders and Jeongguk swallowing
the sweetness of Taehyung’s moans.

Let’s sleep together, says Taehyung, and lights fireworks in the blacks of Jeongguk’s eyelids.

break up

Let’s break up, Taehyung says, and Jeongguk feels the cogs in his brain come to a grinding halt.
The splash of the fountain is loud where they stand, and Jeongguk acutely feels the spray of
recycled, copper-tainted water on his cheeks when the wind picks up.

Taehyung’s face is guarded, as if he thinks Jeongguk will be angry, will ask him why, will demand
a reason in writing, five-page double-spaced in MLA format, no, your Works Cited does not count
as a page. It’s because of this that the change in his expression is so noticeable when Jeongguk only
says one thing.

“Can I kiss you one last time?”

It’s a horrible question. Taehyung opens his mouth, closes it, opens it, closes it, like a fish out of
water, body silver and blue. So cold where he he once was an orange burst of color on Jeongguk’s
lips, and all he says is, “Okay.”

And Taehyung lets Jeongguk pull him to his body, and his mouth is just as soft as it had been the
first time they kissed. It is soft, but full of thorns now, and Jeongguk steps back with blood in his
mouth and tears in his eyes, ones that Taehyung will not see.

“You won’t ask me why?”

“I won’t ask you why,” Jeongguk says, “because then I will ask you to stay.”

And if he thinks about it, as Jeongguk stares into the rippling surface of this dancing fish fountain,
it’s not truly like he lost Taehyung. You cannot lose something that was not yours to begin with.

Let’s break up, says Taehyung, and Jeongguk has to teach himself how to walk this lonely road
again.

try this again

“Let’s try this again,” Taehyung says, and the words smell of coffee and regret. Time and time
again, after leaves have covered the sidewalks of England and cherry blossoms have filled the
reservoirs of Japan and snows have iced the streets of Korea, they are here—separated by an
Americano, a crème brûlée spiced latte, and walls built out of months and years. This conversation
had started with Do you still paint? and Jeongguk nearly laughs and lets himself think that it’s
genuine sadness he sees in Taehyung’s face when he shakes his head.

“Try this again?” Jeongguk asks, as if his heart hasn’t already lifted its head from years of slumber.
“Try this again with you?”

“I am in no position to ask anything of you,” Taehyung says. “But on the tiniest off-chance that
there is any room in your heart left for me, then my question won’t have been in vain.”

Don’t break my heart. You live there.

“But it’s been years,” Taehyung says, running his thumb along the rip of his mug, and he ties off
the end of his sigh with a tight smile. “Stupid of me. I’m sorry I even asked you to come here
today, I must have wasted your time.”

I hope someone else moved into that broken home of you I left behind, and made it beautiful again.

Jeongguk swirls the stirrer in his americano pointlessly, the thin foam on the surface whipping up a
miniature hurricane. He hates coffee, and Americanos are so bitter that Jeongguk can’t even take a
sip without grimacing.

“It’s been years, Taehyung,” Jeongguk agrees. “and we’ve made our own lives.”

Taehyung nods, like he knows a rejection when he hears one, and Jeongguk hastens to pick up the
loose ends before Taehyung unravels before him.

“And in those years, people have come in and out of mine as I assume they have in yours,”
Jeongguk says. “I realized something in this time.”

“What was that?”

“That love is a choice,” Jeongguk says. “A choice that two people can choose to make again and
again, until it works.”

Taehyung searches his face, now.

“If we built a future together expecting the same fire we did at the beginning, that fire will burn
itself out in no time at all,” Jeongguk says. “But if you choose, and I choose to protect that fire, and
rekindle it when it dies together, then I think there is a road out there for us where we walk hand in
hand.”

Let’s try this again, says Taehyung, and their fingers slot together like worn shoelaces on a
forgotten pair of too-small shoes.

get married

“Let’s get married,” Taehyung says over sizzling onions for galbi and stir-fry and Jeongguk
mistakes his words for the pop of oil. It isn’t until he looks at Taehyung that he realizes he did
speak, and the words were real, sitting heavy and expectant in Taehyung’s eyes.

“What?” says Jeongguk, knife suspended over the meat, hands stained. It’s not so much an I didn’t
hear you as it was an I can’t believe you and suddenly the sound of cooking food isn’t so merry
anymore.

“Married,” Taehyung says again, and his words are stilted and clumsy in a way so uncharacteristic
of him. “Will you marry me?”

If Jeongguk ever let himself dream of the day of their proposal (he did, once, twice, awake and
asleep and in the soft land in between), none of them ever played out like this. Not like this, with
Taehyung clutching the tub of gochujang in his hands on his way to the fridge—big and red and
plastic where there should be a small and black and velvet box instead. The knife makes a dull
noise when Jeongguk lowers the blade back onto the chopping board.

“Married?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says, and he’s reaching forward now to take Jeongguk’s hand, the one that’s
clean, in both of his. “Let’s get married, Jeongguk.”

Yes Jeongguk’s heart says. It’s been saying it for years now, yes. And now, Taehyung is in front of
him asking him to be his forever and he doesn’t know how to react. Here he is, proposing to
Jeongguk over raw, marinated spareribs, too scared to get down on one knee in public for fear that
Jeongguk will say

no,

and Taehyung won't be able to pick the pieces up where they fall.

“Forever,” Jeongguk says. “Marriage is forever, Taehyung.”

“I know,” Taehyung says earnestly. “I want that forever with you.”

“Are you serious?”

Taehyung’s scared smile fades from his lips. “Do you think I’m joking?”

“I,” Jeongguk says, and suddenly he’s twenty years old again, standing in the front of the same
dancing fish fountain he’d thrown his won coins into naively wishing for a happy ending.
Taehyung is letting go of his hand and the turn of his back hits Jeongguk in the face again. “You
should think about it, Taehyung.”

“I’ve thought about it for months now,” Taehyung says. The onions are starting to burn but
Jeongguk can’t bring himself to turn around and take them off the heat.
“But I haven’t,” Jeongguk says, and the understanding seems to hit both of them at the same time,
why Jeongguk is so reluctant to say yes even though he wants to.

That day is still tattooed into the lines of Jeongguk’s palms, threaded into his hair. What if, one
day, Jeongguk wakes up to Taehyung taking off his ring and placing it in his palm with, let’s get
divorced on his tongue, the words coming so easy the same way that let’s break up had? And, what
then, after Jeongguk has known true happiness, what will he do?

“Take your time,” Taehyung says, and there’s a tiredness to his words, hurt mixed with
understanding and something bittersweet. “I’ll wait for you.”

And Jeongguk does, he thinks about it, and thinks about it, and thinks about it. Taehyung does not
bring it up again and it doesn’t leave any hard feelings to tread upon between them, and some
nights when Jeongguk is just about asleep and feels Taehyung brushing kisses over the bridge of
his nose or his cupid’s bow he wonders if he had dreamt that entire evening, too.

But perhaps happy endings don’t have to stay in dreams.

It’s raining when Taehyung gets back from work on a Thursday night, late, later than usual after
working overtime to finish a team project that involved both uncooperative coworkers and an
impossible deadline. There are wet little raindrops on the lines of Taehyung’s shoulders, the dark
blue of his blazer nearly black where it’s damp, and Jeongguk is there to pull him into his arms
after he drops his bag on the floor.

“Long day?” he asks, walking backwards slowly until the backs of his legs meet the couch and he
sits down. Taehyung’s limbs never really outgrew their gangliness, but he folds himself neatly in
between Jeongguk’s legs, stretching his own out onto the couch as he tucks his head into
Jeongguk’s throat. His hands are cold and he lets Jeongguk’s own paint-stained fingers warm them,
like little incubators.

“The longest,” Taehyung says. Jeongguk feels the gentle brush of his lashes as his eyes open and
close, the soft smile that Taehyung stamps into his skin.

“Did you eat yet? Do you want dinner? I made buldak.”

“No, but I don’t want to eat yet,” Taehyung says. “Let me just sit here with you.”

“Okay.”

Taehyung feels strangely small in Jeongguk’s arms today, like the usual spirit that makes him
bigger than he actually is has bled out of his body. The rise and fall of his chest is so faint that
Jeongguk would wonder if Taehyung were breathing at all if it weren’t for the steady, warm breath
on his neck. One of Taehyung’s hands rests against Jeongguk’s chest.

“Let’s get married.”

The brush of Taehyung’s lashes when he opens his eyes tickles Jeongguk’s Adam’s apple, and
Taehyung sits up to look into his face. His eyes are huge, disbelieving, full of uncertain joy.

“Really?”

Jeongguk winces. “I should apologize for myself last time,” he says, casting his gaze down. “It
hurts, doubt.”

“It hurts a lot.”

 “I’m sorry.”

“I am too.”

“You don’t—”

“I know I’ve said it over and over again and proven that I don’t need to say it anymore, and you
don’t need to hear it anymore,” Taehyung says, “so this is the last time.”

Jeongguk may never truly forget the feeling of fear that Taehyung will one day leave him. It’s a
lingering ghost that will guard the saddest drawer of his memories. And Taehyung may never truly
shake off the guilt that’s shackled itself to his ankles, chains rattling as he drags the weight of it
with every step he takes. The welts in his skin will scar even when they heal. Perhaps the goal isn’t
to forget heartbreak. Perhaps it is build a better you, me, a better us from it.

On the day Taehyung and Jeongguk meet each other at the altar, he thinks he tears up a little when
Taehyung takes his hands. “One day I hope to become someone you’re proud to love,” he says,
“someone that you aren’t afraid count on.”

Let’s get married, says Taehyung, and Jeongguk says, I do.

And Jeongguk laughs. It’s half a chuckle, half a sob, and a whole lot of love rolled up into one
messy handful, and he says, “Let’s—"

write our own forever

because perhaps the goal isn’t to chase happy endings, Jeongguk thinks when he wakes up one
morning to an armful of blanket-burritoed Taehyung. Maybe the goal is to build a life where happy
endings are inevitable.

End Notes

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