Bulletproof

3a. Josie

You watch with a heavy heart as Taehyung stares out the window, soap-gloved hands and dishes abruptly forgotten. His back is hunched, and his shoulders have never looked so slumped.

When you can't bear to continue staring at his crestfallen figure, you rise silently from the table and wrap your arms around his stomach, burying your face in his soft shirt.

"Tae?" you whisper.

"Hmm?" he asks softly in response.

"I hate seeing you like this..."

He turns his head to smile down at you weakly. "I'm okay."

"Taehyung, you know I hate lies."

You inhale deeply to take in the comforting woodsy smell of him. The muscles in his back flex beneath your body as he chuckles shallowly.

"Wish I could sneak something past you," he rumbles in his deep voice.

"You're pretty terrible at telling lies and keeping secrets."

His voice is barely a whisper, "That means I'm going to die over there, doesn't it?"

"Please don't say that, baby."

"I thought you didn't want me to lie."

Someone clears their throat from the other side of the kitchen.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," Taehyung's mother says softly. "But I'm planning to head to the store in about an hour. Did you..." There is a pain evident in her eyes that only a mother could know and bear. "If you start packing now and you're missing something I can pick it up when I go, okay?"

All of you know there's nothing she can buy that he can take with him, but you let Ms. Kim hang on to the idea that there is one last thing she can do for her son, one last thing she can provide for him before he is lost to the world of war. She smiles sadly and stifles a sigh.

"Here, leave this alone," Tae's mom says, waving her hands to shoo the two of you from the counter. "Go ahead and get started. I'll take care of these."

Taehyung flicks suds off his hands and dries them mechanically on the red and white-striped towel resting on the counter beside the sink.

With your hand on his back, you steer him upstairs slowly. You tell yourself he's not going to die, but he feels dead in your arms already.

Damn the draft, and damn the war.

He opens the door to his room without enthusiasm, a notable contrast from the way he would fling the wooden panel back when the two of you would stumble in, giggling, after blurry red nights drenched in wine.

"Do you remember," he whispers, eyes locked on the bed before you, "when you slept in my arms for the first time? Right there?"

"Of course, Tae." You trace invisible circles against the skin of his hand. "And I can't wait to do it for years to come. I can't wait to do it for forever."

He twists around to look at you with glassy tears lining his eyes. "What would you do if forever didn't come?"

You shake your head and hide your face in his chest, breathing unevenly. He squeezes his arms around your shoulders. "I'm sorry," he says. He places a hand under your chin to guide your eyes to his and smiles in a sincere attempt to improve your mood. "Let's just start packing together, okay?"

You begin opening drawers and rifling through stacks of folded shirts. You rub the fabric of each in between your fingers, taking in the texture of what you consider to be him.