"Life is about give and take; you know this better than anyone; the deal is clear, either you take an in, or war it shall be.
"It's indeed give and take, so why do I feel like the only one who gives without receiving anything in return?"
"Because th...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Plates of hot soup passed in and out of the room with no visible change in quantity or how they were served. It was alarming, Taehyung thought. Something that, if it continued at this rate, would have disastrous consequences. Planned destruction.
He had a phobia of that. Had seen this scenario before and thought it made him sick to his stomach.
So he took action, keen to save what little was left of you before it also turned to ashes.
Just like Jimin.
The hardest part of grieving is acknowledging the loss. Denial is the softer phase, something that comes later, after decades of tears and suffering. At first, you resisted acceptance, defying a fate that was already sealed. Thought the trick would work its magic as long as you didn't see his body bare of soul and the golden hue that constituted a large part of him. However, Taehyung insisted that you should bid goodbye, to see, touch and feel what you would never have the chance to see again. Something about soothing the soul with certainty rather than lashing it with doubt.
And that's what you did. You killed the doubt and engraved the denial.
Except for the bloodcurdling cry of loss at the sight of the man you love lying in a refrigerator, no words came out of your mouth. The tears that followed were silent, and the lack of words caused by the absence of the right ones that would have done justice to such a goodbye choked your breath, lowered your body temperature, and you blamed it on the damn air conditioning and the smell of death.
But Taehyung saw it for what it was and relied on logical thoughts instead of metaphorical explanations: Panic attack. And by the time he made the connection between the pale face and the rapid breaths, it was already too late.
By the time you fell to the ground and the fist relinquished its grip on Jimin's hand, Taehyung seemed to have forgotten the vocabulary and all the words in it, save for an "I'm sorry" delivered to you in his embrace that you couldn't hear and wouldn't change anything even if you did.
When you woke up, head fuzzy and eyes burning from the light of the fluorescent tube on the ceiling, your hand was clasped between a larger one, a warmer one, and you liked to think that Jimin finally returned your touch, understood your silent pleas for him not to leave, the promises that it would all be worth it if he gave you a second chance before your eyes went blank, overtaken by darkness.
Taehyung didn't take his hand back as you kept glancing at the way it was connected to yours. The silver band around his ring finger declared that it was where it belonged without him telling tales. He didn't like the idea of giving up. On people, on things, it didn't matter. It was all the same, and he had a principle to behold.
His thumb stroked the soft skin as he asked you how you felt, and when your voice cracked as it delivered a half-hearted "I'm okay," he reached for the water bottle on the bedside table, opened it, and filled the glass that stood next to it before handing it to you. When the first sip went down the pipe, his hand was felt over your shoulders, just below your neck, trying to help you sit up in a position that would make it easier to down the proffered liquid.
