Hilde | Kim Taehyung fanfiction ✓

taehyung

27

Taehyung could hear Arya's irregular breathing, signaling that she was still awake. It was likely past midnight, and neither of them had managed to fall asleep. They lay side by side on the bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling, their minds racing with thoughts.

He was almost relieved to be awake. If he slept, his dreams would be haunted by memories of his mother and the guilt of how he let her down in her final days by not only working for Thorne, but also for not confiding in her. Blood money, that's all he could think about when he remembered the hospital bills scattered all over the kitchen table.

Was Arya secretly glad to be awake too? Was she avoiding sleep to escape nightmares, or was she genuinely unable to fall asleep?

"Usually, when I can't sleep, I talk to Edith," Arya broke the silence. Taehyung didn't reply, giving her the space to either continue talking or not. "She just listens to me. Sometimes she makes tea while I ramble about why I'm still awake at three or four in the morning."

"Does it happen often? I mean, you not falling asleep?" Taehyung kept his eyes on the ceiling, but from the corner of his eye, he saw Arya nod.

"Why?"

"Death. That's all I see when I close my eyes for more than thirty minutes. Sometimes I see my family dying in front of me, and I'm unable to help them, just like six years ago. Other times, I see myself dying at the hands of my father. It's scary. What if this..." Arya hesitated, but Taehyung knew what she was about to say.

"What if this is a mistake? Us going to Idyllwild and sorting out our respective messes?" Taehyung asked, turning his head slightly to look at Arya.

"Yes."

"This is the second time you've gotten cold feet in the past, I don't know, less than twenty-four hours." He grinned, looking at her. "The eve of your wedding will be... an event, that's for sure," he joked, turning back to the ceiling. He heard her huff and smiled to himself at her reaction.

"What about you?"

"What about me?" Taehyung asked back, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Why can't you sleep? You drove for God knows how many hours, and the last time you slept was probably before you met me. It kind of looks like you're used to not sleeping much, if at all."

After a few beats of silence, Taehyung sighed and rubbed an eye with the heel of his palm. "There are things my subconscious shows me that I refuse to see when I'm awake."

"That was almost poetic," Arya whispered jokingly. "Like what?"

"Listen, we've already had a little heart-to-heart in your kitchen a day or two ago. We don't need to do this again."

"C'mon, Taetae," she said, turning to her side, facing him, and propping her head with a hand.

"Taetae?" He cocked an eyebrow, trying to hide a confused smile.

"Yeah, Taetae. After all we've done together and everything we're going to go through, I think I can call you that."

Taehyung snorted at her words, yawning slightly and feeling the need to stretch a little before speaking. "My mom. I see her in my dreams a lot. And it just reminds me that no matter the extreme lengths I've gone, I still couldn't save her."

"You know, I really hate when they say this nonsense in books and movies, but it's not your fault," she muttered, now unable to look Taehyung in the eyes.

"I know that," Taehyung said, looking at the wall behind her instead of at Arya. "I still feel guilty, though." He shifted in his spot to rest his head better on the pillow, his eyes getting heavier by the second. He fully turned to lie on his side, facing Arya. "I know I couldn't have changed the outcome, but guilt is still present. It's hard."

Arya nodded at his words. "I know. It's like your brain is telling you that just because you were there, you could have done something to prevent anything bad from happening, but it's not true. It was out of your hands."

"It's difficult to make peace with it."

"You might never make peace with it. Instead, you have to learn how to live with it," Arya replied, lying her head on the pillow, mirroring Taehyung's position.

Facing each other in the dimly lit room, they still avoided direct eye contact. Occasionally, a yawn escaped their lips, or one of them rubbed their eyes until colors danced before them. Their eyes were red and stung, their eyelids growing heavier by the moment.

"You know, you're not that bad to talk to," Taehyung joked, his tiredness evident even in his attempt at humor.

Arya's eyes were already closing as sleep crept over her. She smiled faintly at Taehyung's remark, barely visible in the darkness of the room. "Thank you, I agree."

By now, they were both murmuring words, exhaustion making their speech slightly slurred, yet they understood each other perfectly, as if they were accustomed to deciphering each other's half-awake ramblings.

Finally, sleep enveloped them both a few minutes after they fell silent. They drifted off facing each other, their breathing syncing in rhythm. For the first time in a while, Taehyung slept through the night without the past haunting his thoughts, even in his waking moments.