Apartment Building No. 5 [A Taekook Short Story]

1 Numb

It was the first day of winter. Jeongguk stood outside his apartment building, looking up.
He did not want to go up there.
Have to make himself dinner.
Eat it.
Alone.
Do the dishes.
Alone.
Go to bed.
Alone.
Always alone.
Bitterly alone.
With the memories.
He couldn't afford to move, but he wanted to.
Every single thing in there reminded him of Taehyung.
His shining eyes.
The giggles.
His smooth naked body demanding pleasure from Jeongguk's.
Everything.
It played as a movie stuck on repeat.
Jeongguk felt a ripple shake the desert that was him, the waters waiting to flood it again when he remembered that cursed day.

They had been seeing eachother in secret for almost a year.
Jeongguk didn't mind. Taehyung was still in the closet and worried about his religious parents cutting him off if they knew, and Jeongguk respected that.
Respected Taehyung's indecisiveness.
They were old, too.
His parents.
Maybe he should just wait?
Jeongguk understood.
They'd met online, like everyone else and had had so much fun together on their first date, instantly connecting, getting eachother.
Being practically inseperable after that.
Sharing the deepest, most personal, feelings with the other.
Euphoria.
Total bliss.
Unable to stay away from one another.

They were making dinner when he felt Tae's eyes on him, "What?"
"I'm, nothing." Taehyung smiled and stopped looking att him, shaking his head.
"Come on, what?" Jeongguk halted the food preparations and demanded an answer.
Taehyung grew serious, "You are the most wonderful person in the entire world, Jeon Jeongguk." he said with his dark, bottomless eyes burning holes into Jeongguk's soul.
"Heh." Jeongguk had to swallow some spit. His mind had gone blank, feeling almost ambushed by that revelation.
"Wonderful." Taehyung whispered, voice close to breaking, and cupped Jeongguk's cheek, softly caressing the temple with his thumb.
"Taehyung I," Jeongguk started, but got cut off by Tae kissing him with an intensity that took his breath away, 'love you.' he continued in his head.

It was the most magical thing Jeongguk had ever experienced.
Feeling connected to another person like he was connected to Taehyung right now.
Making love.
Feeling Tae in every last bit of his own body.
Wanting to cry from all the emotions he was feeling at once.
Seeing the raw, almost desperate, love in Taehyung's eyes, everything he was feeling for him, out there, in the open without being said.
"Jeonggukkeo." Taehyung gasped as they let go together.

"I want this to be my life." Jeongguk confessed, lying on Taehyung's arm, lacing their fingers together across their chests, "Our life."
Tae placed a soft kiss on Gguk's lips.
"I mean, I get," Jeongguk turned to his side so he could look at Taehyung, "that things are, difficult, for you, with your parents and all," he nodded, "but I want this. I want to make a life with you. To have this, with you. Every day."
"Mm." Taehyung sighed, with a wistful smile, "That is a nice dream."
"It doesn't have to be." Jeongguk objected, "We can make it a reality. If we want to."
"I wish it was that simple." Taehyung again sighed.
"But it is that simple." Jeongguk turned on his belly and propped himself up on his elbows so he could look at him, "We just have to decide that's what we want. And make that happen."
Taehyung smiled and put a strand of hair back behind Jeongguk's ear.
"Let's move in together." Gguk suggested.
Tae kissed him again and pulled him back into their embrace.
"I wish it was that simple." Taehyung repeated and placed a kiss on Gguk's forehead.
"But it is that simple." Jeongguk again argued, but got scared all of a sudden, "Unless you don't want to?" he sat up, looking down at Taehyung, "You don't want to?" he wondered, frightened and not particularly keen on knowing the answer, all of a sudden, but, asked was asked.
"I," Tae's chin started to shiver a bit and Jeongguk could clearly see how he pulled himself together, "don't think," Taehyung cleared his voice, "there's anything I'd want more in this world." he confessed.
"But?"
"It's just, I have, obligations." Tae shuffled himself up on his elbows, coming very close to Jeongguk, almost making him want to go again.
Taehyung was just, too.
Jeongguk wanted to freaking jump him, being all.
He tried to get his thoughts in order.
"And moving in with me would get in the way of those obligations?" he asked instead.
"You know it would." Taehyung said with so much regret in his voice it broke Jeongguk's heart.
But then he got a little bit angered, wasn't he important too?
Wasn't this, what they had, worth the fight?
Didn't they owe eachother devotion?
"So, a couple of old houses and some farm animals are more important to you than I am? We are?" he asked, wounded.
"No! Of course not!" Taehyung sat up, and crossed his legs, facing him, "But," he sighed, "I'm, I can't, I don't want my parents to die thinking I'm going to go to hell because of us. I," he couldn't continue.
"So we're going to hell because we love eachother?" Jeongguk tried to understand.
"No!" Taehyung gently protested, "Yes. I don't know! That is what they believe. What a lot of people believe. What the freaking Pope believes!" he shook his head, "Who am I to," he shrugged.
"I thought the Pope was kinda ok with gay people by now?" Jeongguk sulked.
"More like, ambiguous." Taehyung shrugged.
"So you lied." Gguk said, and sat up halfway turned from Tae, "You want to please the Pope more than you want to live with me."
He knew he was being childish.
But it hurt.
It hurt so bad.
He started to get out of bed, but Taehyung stopped him, cradled him close, holding him tight, "No. I don't want that." he said low, but very adamantly, "I want you. But I have," he sighed for the third time, "obligations."
"To take care of the family business?" Jeongguk tried to understand how loving him could possibly get in the way of that.
"Yes." Taehyung answered with what sounded more like a groan than anything else.
"But," Gguk started to object, but realised, "there's more isn't it?"
Tae looked away, but nodded.
"You have to..." Jeongguk couldn't finish his sentence, but he knew. He knew because Taehyung had told him.
The estate could only be inherited through Tae's line to be kept whole.
Tae was an only child.
He needed an heir.
Born in wedlock.
Properly.
Like in freaking ancient times.
They'd laughed about it.
How ridiculous it was.
Dated.
Out of step with the times.
But still a reality.
Apparently.
Taehyung's eyes were huge, black with despair.
"When?" Jeongguk wanted to know.
Tae swallowed but didn't answer.
"When?" Gguk demanded an answer.
"Next week." Tae gasped.
"Next week!?" Jeongguk stood up, "You're getting married next week?! How, when, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?" he held his head together out of fear it would actually explode, "YOU'RE GETTING MARRIED NEXT WEEK AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME?!" he made a full turn, "OMG, you've been engaged this whole time, haven't you?" he looked wide-eyed at the person he thought he knew better than anyone.
"Jeongguk, I'm sorry!" Taehyung stood up and tried to catch Gguk's hands.
"Don't fucking touch me you fucking liar." Jeongguk hissed, "YOU'VE BEEN ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED THIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME!"
"I'm so sorry! I, wanted to, know, for sure," Taehyung stuttered.
"If you were gay?" Jeongguk guessed, "Well, whop-dee-doh, asshole, you are!"
"I know! I'm, I just,"
"WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST TELL ME FROM THE START YOU FUCKING BASTARD? HEY, JEONGGUK, I LIKE YOU AND ALL, BUT I'M NOT LOOKING FOR A RELATIONSHIP! YOU, FUCKING, SUCK!"
"I know! I should have! But, you're so wonderful and I couldn't not be with you, and,"
"SHUT! UP!" Jeongguk did not want to hear this shit. He'd used him! The whole time!
Used his feelings for him.
Let him.
"Get the fuck out of my life, Kim Taehyung." Jeongguk ordered, "I loved you and you, get out." he stalked into his bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
"Jeongguk, please!" Taehyung begged, knocking on the door.
Jeongguk pulled the door open, seeing red, but he had to know, "Were you EVER gonna tell me?" he crossed his arms infront of him, "Or just keep stringing me along? Being married in secret? Having a gay lover on the down low?"
"I've tried to tell you so many times, Jeongguk!" Taehyung cried, "But I didn't want this to happen!" he dropped his arms infront of him in a helpless gesture.
"Wow." Jeongguk said, sarcastically, "Fucking coward."
"Yes! I am a coward. That is what I am! I admit it! I'm a coward! But you know that!"
"Are you gonna tell her?" Jeongguk said insinuatingly.
"I," Tae said, helplessly.
"I see." Jeongguk shook his head, "GET OUT! BEFORE I CALL THE POLICE AND STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME! GIVE ME THE RESPECT OF STAYING THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY LIFE FROM NOW ON! GET OUT!" he pointed towards the door, but Taehyung didn't move.
Jungkook yanked him along and shoved him towards the hall, "OUT! GET OUT!" he opened the door and threw him out.
Actually threw him out.
"I never want to see you again, Kim Taehyung." he ended it with, icily, and went back inside, slamming the door shut.
"Jungkook! Come on!" Taehyung banged on the closed door.
Jungkook ran into the bathroom, slamming this door too and put his hands over his ears, and sank down to the floor.
Trying to breathe.
Hitting the back of his head against the wall.
Fucking asshole dick.
Fuck!

Jeongguk felt a tear rip loose from the vast wasteland of his forced emotionlessness and hurriedly whipped it back from whence it came.
No.
No more crying.
He'd cried for that bastard so many, lonely nights since then.
"I have to fucking move." he muttered and turned his back to his home where he couldn't bring himself to be right now and went across the street to the coffee shop where he practically lived nowadays.
He didn't see Taehyung quite as often in there as he did back in the apartment.
He still saw him, obviously.
The fucker had a tendency to haunt him wherever he went, never being there in the flesh of course, "Fucking spook." Jeongguk spat out when he saw Tae's familiar frame from behind at one of the booths as he entered.
Was he never going to be free of him?
Dream of him.
Hate his guts.
Want him.
Love him.
Jeongguk had had so much casual sex, trying to erase the memory of him, he'd actually looked up Shaolin temples to join.
'Cause casual sex, didn't do it.
He'd tried that for the last eighteen months.
He needed something else to cleanse him of Tae.
"A fucking exorcism." he mumbled as he waited for his coffee.
"Jeongguk." Taehyung's deep voice said behind him.
Great.
Now he was having sound hallucinations as well.
"I need to talk to you, please." the ghost continued, "Jeongguk." it said, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
Jeongguk turned, unwillingly, prepared to pretend he was looking for something in thin air when his mind'd played tricks on him again.
He had to blink.
Taehyung looked like shit.
He didn't usually look like shit when Jeongguk dreamt him, "The fuck are you doing here?" he said when he realised he was actually here and turned his back on him again.
"I guess I deserve that." Taehyung sighed.
Jeongguk got his drink and frecken ran out of the coffe shop.
"Please wait!" Taehyung begged, coming after him, stepping infront of him to stop him, "I owe you an apology."
"Yeah." Jeongguk nodded, "But I don't owe you my attention." he started walking again.
"I'm divorced!" Tae blurted out, "She divorced me when I told her."
"Yeah? Well, good for her." Jeongguk said and kept walking.
Where, he did not know.
"I did love you."
He heard Taehyung sob behind him.
"I still love you. You have no idea how much!" Tae halfway shouted after him.
"I have no idea how, " Jeongguk spat out and turned around, stalking up to Taehyung, "I loved you! You fucking asshole! More than I've ever loved anyone! I thought, I wanted," he had to swallow to not punch the fucking idiot in his face!
"You," Jeongguk pinched his mouth shut with his fingers, "I," he turned away from him again, "asshole." he began walking again.
And changed his mind!
"You took my heart and stomped on it!" Jeongguk screamed in Tae's face, "We had this, and it was all a lie!" he left him again.
"No!" Tae protested, and stopped him with a firm grip around his arm, "None of it was! It was pure, and, wonderful and, absolutely true! All of it!"
"Are, you, for, real?" Jeongguk growled, "IT WAS ALL A LIE!" he threw his coffee as far as he could manage, angrier than he'd ever been in his life!
"And then you" he shoved his fingers into Tae's chest, "married a woman that didn't know shit about you! Have you at least procured your precious heir?"
"No." Taehyung answered.
"No?!" Jeongguk screamed, "THEN WHAT THE HELL WAS THE FUCKING POINT?!"
"Beats me." Taehyung sighed and sat down on a stone ledge.
"Ha. Ha. Ha." Jeongguk stinged, "The architect of our collective misfortune don't know why he bothered to hurt us. GROW A FUCKING PAIR AND OWN UP TO IT! ASSHOLE!"
He ran away.
Ran.
Away.