Secrets - [TAEBIN FF]

Chapter 39

A/N: I'm really going to break your hearts this chapter. Feel yourselves warned. Grab a pillow or a plushie in preparation for the tears, you'll need them. Hope that didn't scare you off.

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🎶: 'Can You Hold Me (feat. Britt Nicole)' by NF

What defines true winter?

Was it the actual weather that brought snow and ice?

Or was winter when it feels so cold in your soul that not even the strongest fire could warm you up?

If that's the case... March might be coming, but for Taehyun and Soobin, the winter was only coming at them.

And it came along with the blizzards and ice.

The next few days were an unbearably painful living hell for the now separated couple.

Soobin was on house arrest, forbidden to go anywhere except for school. He was forbidden to say a word about anything regarding this matter to Hoseok and Jungkook, and the two were suspicious at his quiet, solemn attitude.

Because Soobin avoided sitting them with them.

Instead, he was all by himself on the rooftop, shivering in his winter coat not because it was cold, but because he was trying to keep it together without having his beloved on the side.

How can I do this... this will be my life soon.

Taehyun, meanwhile, only felt his fragile heart break even more with every day that passed. He watched their apartment being packed away into boxes, his mom cancelling his school hours and café shifts, and hearing Mr Choi talk to Ahyeon about the final insurances and coverings in what used to be the living room.

Yes, this apartment was battered and anything but lavish, but... it was home. It had been home for three years... and just like that, Taehyun was ripped away from another one due to something he once again could not control.

Yet what tortured him the most was that he could not see Soobin. The only one outside of his family he could still see was Beomgyu. Nobody else, not even Yeonjun or Yeji or even Jungkook and Hoseok, could visit him. 

He cried into his best friend's shoulder every single day, the only one he could trust at the moment, crying out all the pain and exhaustion he felt until his eye ducts were stinging, red and swollen. And that was made the growing hole in his heart even worse.

Beomgyu was also in a state of turmoil with his emotions. The past few days have only been this: go to school, avoid Soobin, go to the Kangs' apartment and hold the distraught brunette in his arms. And he was left confused and puzzled on how to cope with this, the reality. After all, his best friend since childhood is leaving, and he has no idea when or if he will ever see him again.

Yeonjun meanwhile was doing his best to be in contact with all of them through the phone, but he knew that the Chois didn't like him at all either, so he tried his hardest to be discrete about it. Oftentimes, he saw Soobin walk past the café, with a solemn and empty look on his face as he placed one step in front of the other, having no idea in what direction he could go. It shattered him to see him this way. He saw Taehyun for the last time at the café on a Tuesday night, just like the day they first met, and bid him goodbye, telling him that he was the kindest little brother he could have in his life.