He doesn't even kiss Hoseok that first month. He asks that he not go back to real world for his studies and Hoseok agrees. Taehyung suspects it's because he doesn't think he has a choice, despite the fact that he's specifically phrased it to show that he did. He doesn't make a point of it because he's gotten the answer he wanted.
Hoseok mostly stays in his room. Moping, he supposes. At night he pads across the floor in his nightshirt, slips into bed, turns his back and falls asleep. They don't speak but sometimes Taehyung wakes with his arm wrapped around Hoseok's chest and his mouth pressed to the back of his neck.
Hoseok's neck and ears will pink up then and he will tense until his muscles seem like they'll never unwind again.
He never moves away, in fact he barely breathes until Taehyung's hands leave him. It's all he's asked of him so far, that Hoseok sleep with him in the guest bedroom and Hoseok had nervously acquiesced, not looking him in the eye.
During the days that Taehyung is there, Hoseok reads in the solarium, his bare feet curled into the scratchy, flowered upholstery of his chair and his silver hair looking more golden while his eyes swift through seemingly endless lines of text.
He assumes that's what Hoseok does on the days he leaves as well but it's something he can't know. Well, he can. But he refuses to nose into Hoseok's privacy any more than he already has.
Taehyung doesn't press, doesn't alter their relationship any further and, before long, Hoseok joins him for meals in the dining room and he makes no complaint when the underworld god pores over maps and parchments in the solarium with him. The tension that becomes Hoseok's constant companion over the next few months slowly bleeds away as those first eight draw to a close and soon, on those mornings when he wakes to Taehyung's arm locked around his middle, he does nothing more than glance at it, close his eyes and fall away into sleep all over again.
He thinks the fact that he and Hoseok have remained so distant will cushion the blow when he leaves. He could not be more wrong.
He spends four long months in a state of complete rigidity and not enough sleep. Life drains out of everything around him, death and bitterness following in his wake. Leaves fall from trees, drying and flaking, flowers wither and brown up and everyone seems to know better than to comment.
The god of underworld, missing a certain boy.
Only Yoongi smirks at him when even the white oak behind the property starts to lose its foliage and the crisp winter can hardly be blamed for that. Taehyung pretends not to notice.
Every thought or plan he's ever had flies out of his head when he lays eyes on Hoseok again, standing outside the door with another inch to his name and an almost sheepish grin. Taehyung takes a single step forward – caution thrown to the wind, slides his hand into Hoseok's hair, cradles the back of his head and kisses him hard on the mouth.
He's so intent on the action that it takes him a long moment to register the fact that Hoseok is kissing him back.
His lips slow and stumbling but pressing into him with the lightest of pressure.
The kissing continues but Hoseok shudders any time he presses for more.
He cradles the joint of Hoseok's jaw, noses his fingers into Hoseok's hair, drags him forward onto his lips. The kiss is sweet and soft as it often is and, at the pressure of Taehyung's fingertips, Hoseok's mouth opens and Taehyung's tongue sweeps in, calling out Hoseok's.
