Petal | tk

Chapter 32: Saudade

Pic cred to rightful owner

Ignore the mistakes plz :)
A filler chapter.

Third Person POV

Jeongguk stare at the curve that would eventually lead him to the place he has shared with Taehyung twice now. He believes, surely that both times it's been absolutely magical.

The magic he's put off by his own hands, grabbed it by the throat and choked the breath right out of that magic so heartlessly, took it for granted and threw away the only ever chance he had to ever feel like he could live a mundane life like a normal boy.

But it's too late for the regret now. Too late to be crying over something that's been done and brutally so.

Now all he is left with another kind of regret, a heart so scathed, a mind so confused, a body too tired to function properly but still so aware of what he's done, what his stupid thoughts made him do.

He looks at the curve of the road with such longing, with such heavy heart, all his thoughts and feelings out of his hands to control and he never thought he was even capable of them.

Of feeling guilty, of regretting something. Of being absolutely gut wrenched about something he has always been doing to other people and yet it all surfaces when it's Taehyung.

Only when it's him.

Sure it had been different, kissing him, holding him while kissing him, wanting to do that again and again, fucking him while looking right in his eyes, watching him fall apart---

---because fuck it, he's got the eyes he'd forever wanna watch fall apart under him.

Sure, he's never wanted to see anyone smile like he wanted to see Taehyung smile because of him, something that happened quite rarely but it did. Or when he wanted Taehyung to not leave with Eunwoo because it should be him driving him everywhere.

He'd be his personal driver for all he cares.

Or the fact that he'd never considered how easy it was to shift to wanting a man so close to him when he never, ever thought he'd feel such things for the same gender. It was so easy with Taehyung as if its nothing.

Then again, it's not just someone. It's Taehyung.

The man he hated so much at first and how easy that goofy ass of his changed it.

So after it all,  he thought he'd be fine if he left him like he leaves everyone else. Would be fine because he's always fine. Nothing scares him anymore, nothing makes him guilty or makes him regret anything.

Then here he is, fucking feeling all of it with such a force of a slap that it leaves him embarrassed in his own eyes.

And he never feels embarrassed either.

He fails to know when was it that he started feeling so much, started caring so much?

Had it been the Jeongguk of a few months ago in Taehyung's shop, begging and being so desperate just so Taehyung would listen, he'd laugh so hard because Jeon Jeongguk doesn't beg.

Yet the shift in him was alarming, dangerously so. He knows he's been ignoring these alarms a lot but he never knew it'll escalate to this.

He turns his abandoned eyes off the curve that leads to the edge of the river and drives away with a rising anger inside him.