love me (me) [vkook/taegguk]

[part sixteen] chapter sixty two - it's jeongguk

"Have you decided yet?"

He doesn't mean to blurt the words out as soon as he's in the apartment, nor does he mean to slam the door closed behind him, effectively startling his unsuspecting brother as he does, but with all that he's currently feeling, Taehyung thinks that some things can't be helped.

"Hello to you too... and I'm sorry?" Vantae greets, getting up from the couch to approach him cautiously.

He's bewildered, and rightly so, because while the two of them had made plans to meet up while all their friends were out for the day, they hadn't agreed on Taehyung coming over so early. But he didn't know what else to do.

He'd left the dorm before anyone else was up in order to avoid Jeongguk's questions of why he wasn't joining them for brunch, and though he'd gotten them anyway over text, he felt a bit better having evaded the stomach-churning act of lying to the other's perfect face once he did. But that relief was shorter lived than Jimin's manly dudebro phase at the thought that he'd still have to go back later and keep doing that very thing for the next few weeks.

Thus, he can only sigh as he clarifies, "Have you decided on how you're going to tell Jeongguk about me? And about this whole swap thing?"

The abrupt elucidation doesn't seem to clear anything up for his twin. "What are you –" In fact, it actually seems to make things worse for him. "I don't remember deciding that I was even going to just yet?" V swallows, stopping in his tracks completely.

Taehyung wants to crumple in his. "Okay, but I can't do this anymore."

He's given an apprehensive look. "Meaning?"

"If you don't do it soon, I'm going to myself. For real."

Vantae pales in a second. "Bear?" He splutters, swaying his head wearily. "I thought we already talked about this? I'm– I don't– What happened to giving me time?"

Taehyung takes a deep breath of his own. "Do you have feelings for him?"

"What?"

He steels himself. Then, "Because I think that I might. And so I can't keep being dishonest with him like this."

He also hadn't planned on asking or spilling any of what he has, but none of it is anything that he can take back now.

Though V appears like he may want him to. "You..." He exhales. "You think that you have feelings for Jeongguk?"

"No," Taehyung breathes back, straightening. "No, I know I do."

They still haven't moved away from the entrance to Taehyung's apartment, turned Vantae's home for the last few weeks, and he doesn't think they will anytime soon at this point.

"How do you –" He cuts himself off, blinking rapidly. "Does he..." Know? Have feelings for you too? Vantae doesn't finish either of his questions. "So what? You want me to tell him and set you guys up right after or something?" He scoffs slightly instead.

And his brother has never been cruel, to anyone else but especially not to him, but he'd almost think there's a first time for everything if the words weren't clearly uttered around what sounds to be glass in his throat.

He huffs too, shaking his head. "You aren't being fair."

"And you are?" V shoots back speedily though, tossing his arms up in disbelief. "I mean, it's Jeongguk, Tae," he echoes the words Taehyung himself had said to him only a few days ago, but more desperately, more –

"So you do." It's enough to confirm it. "Have feelings for him."

But his hyungie is obviously not ready to yet. "Why do you keep asking me that?"

"I wasn't this time," Taehyung says, finally stepping closer to him. "Why didn't you tell me, Van-ah?"

Vantae looks away, folding in on himself. "I'm not talking about this."

He takes a hold of both his brother's hands to prevent it. "No, we are," he insists, firm but gentle.

Another scoff. "And what do you want me to say exactly, Taehyung?" A shudder, one that racks his whole body and consequently his twin's who refuses to let go of him. "That I love him? That I have since the moment his big, beautiful stars for eyes met mine for the first time?"

Well, that's certainly a start. He presses his lips together as he thinks it, an odd conflicting feeling at being right about something he wasn't even aware he wanted to be wrong about spreading through him.

"So you know that you're in love with him? Undisputedly non-platonically?" He asks to make sure. "You've known this entire time?"

Vantae's face contorts in frustration. "I mean, I didn't immediately, but it was hard not to have the epiphany when I woke up one day wanting to slow dance with him for the rest of my life," he grumbles. "What kinda question –"

"I'm just trying to understand here," Taehyung interrupts, squeezing his hands just once. "Whatever I feel for him aside, you know that he feels the same way about you, don't you? Most likely for as long as you have?"

"I..." His brother gulps again, twisting his lips wryly. "I try not to think about that possibility." At the baffled look thrown his way, he repeats, "It's Jeongguk," sadly, shakily. "Not only do I never want to do anything to jeopardize our once in a lifetime, out of this world, precious beyond comprehension friendship... but I could never put his future and upcoming career at risk either."

The unspoken reason of how he could given the country in which the idol trainees both live and said country's behaviors and beliefs goes without saying, and due to that, Taehyung guesses that he can understand in a way, but he doesn't think he'll ever get it completely. It's Jeongguk. He thinks one day he could be someone who would risk any and everything for that man.

"Although, I guess I already have," V continues anyway. "Endangered our friendship, that is," he sniffles a bit. "By keeping your existence from him for so long, and now, forcing you to stupidly switch places with me and lie to his absurdly amazing face on the daily after I fucked up."

"Hey, you didn't force me to do anything."

His hyungie shakes his head, suspires with the utmost exhaustion. "Doesn't change the fact that I've been incredibly selfish." He leans forward to rest his head on his twin's shoulder. "I know that I have to tell him, Tae. Many things," he whispers against it, scared witless. "Will you be there with me when I do?"

Taehyung lifts a hand to his hair, tugs him closer and holds on tight. "You know you don't even have to ask, Van-ah."