Quid Pro Quo. TaeKook AU

I quit

The day after the contract ended. 

Tae POV 

"You have a lot of explaining to do" Kathy stormed into my office

"I don't have to explain anything" I shook my head 

"You fucking hurt him Taehyung. In the worst imaginable way. You confessed to having feelings for him and then just fucking threw him away like garbage. He loves you Tae, why can't you see that?" She started crying and her voice cracked making my heart sink further into my chest. 

"If he had stayed professional about the situation, he wouldn't have gotten hurt" 

"And what about you!? Are you not hurt? You weren't very professional either!" 

"Of course I'm hurt! Just because I'm better at being a dick and masking my feelings doesn't mean I don't have them!" 

"I know that! That's why I'm so god damn disappointed in you!" 

"What else is fucking new? Everyone's always disappointed in me, or with me! Why the fuck do you think I let him go?! If I let him stay he'll fucking leave anyone just like everyone else!" 

"I haven't left! I'm still right here! He would still be here too!"

"That's your stupid fault. Not mine. You don't want to be here anymore? Fucking leave then. Maybe you and Jungkook can go be best fucking friends and live happily ever after!" 

"I'm the last person you want to talk to like that Taehyung, don't you dare raise your voice at me" 

"You're my employee, don't talk to me like that and disrespect me as your boss" 

"As my boss? Are you fucking serious?" 

Shit. 

I shouldn't have said that. 

My mouth hung open as I watched her crumble in the same way Jungkook did the day before, I wish I had never opened my mouth. 

"I quit. Happy? Now you're not my boss. And you know what? Until you fucking grow up, and realize that there are people out there who love and care for you, we don't fucking have to be anything at all. I always swore that I'd never leave you. But this" she waved her hand at me "isn't the same Tae that I made that promise to. This is a different man. A coward. Not a strong, damaged man that had dreams, goals, ambitions, and HOPE Taehyung, you had HOPE and now what do you have? Nothing" she turned around and opened the door "and now, no one" she sobbed as she slammed the door. 

And just like that, I was back to that scared little boy, holding onto my mom, screaming and crying for her not to leave me. Offering to work to help her so I could stay by her side. 

I was the teenager that laid on my bed, naked on my stomach, staring at a ring on the floor by a rickety old record player. 

The two people who want to be with me, I pushed them away. 

No, I threw them away. 

I threw them so far away that now I don't know what to do to get them back. 

If they would even come back. 

I stood up and started throwing everything around my office, if it wasn't nailed down it was smashed to pieces, torn up paper thrown around, my expensive bottle of scotch thrown at the wall, shattering into pieces. My computer picked up and smashed repeatedly into the ground as I let out a loud scream and let the tears fall from my face. 

Am I really that fucking scared? 

That fucking pathetic that I've let my life become controlled by things that I never had any control over to begin with? 

I swore that if Kathy ever left me, I'd have no reason to live. 

When my mother left me, I had no reason to live.

When Namjoon left me, I had no reason to live. 

I made my own reasons to hang on. 

Jazz

Art

Photography

School

Work

I never used Love as reason to live. 
I never used my own worth as a reason to live.

It felt too scary and too fragile to put any trust in ever again. 

And as I sat on the floor of my office, leaning against my door while someone pounded on the door to ask if I was okay, I realized that I needed to change. 

Two weeks after the contract ended 

"Are you sure about this?" Namjoon asked me as I sat across from him 

"Unfortunately I am" 

"Why?"

"Because I've chosen myself over everything else for the first time in my entire life"

"I'm sorry Tae, really. For everything. I feel like I'm responsible for a lot of your mental issues, and I can't ever make that up to you" 

"Just take of everything and we'll call it even" 

He nodded and shook my hand. 

I got in my car and drove over to the flower shop, I grabbed a bouquet of different colored daisies and drove over to Kathy's house. 

I needed to fix everything.