rain » vkook

epilogue

"Hey Mom," I say into the phone. "I'm doing so much better than I used to. I found someone, and I've been with him for a year now and he's just like me but it's so much better than I could've hoped for. I got lucky, Mom -"

"We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service."

I set the phone back down on the cradle, cutting off the automated voice. It's foolish of me to continue calling my mother's phone, I know.

I lived alone because I was alone. I became too much for my mother to raise by herself and she left, just like our dad did. I found out later that she overdosed on pills.

It's foolish of me to expect a ghost to return calls.

Earlier this morning, I thought Taehyung left again. I woke up and he was gone without a note, just like the first time we met, and I panicked. I didn't know what to do; I couldn't find it in myself to dial any other number than hers. I didn't even know that I still remembered it.

Before I talked to the concrete jungle, I talked to her.

"Jeongguk, who was that?" Taehyung asks from the kitchen in a tone that implies it's the third or fourth time he's asked me this.

"It was no one," I say unconvincingly.

He walks over, cups my chin, and kisses my forehead.

"You know you can talk to me about anything, right?" He says gently. I smile and nod; overwhelmed by how much he's grown, how much happier he is.

The people who had assaulted him were busted, busted wide open, so all the black stuff inside them spilled out, for possession of drugs. They're now serving in jail, with his ex-boyfriend. Since we found out, he's been so...free.

And it breaks my heart in a beautifully strange way; it breaks my heart that he only now understands what it's like to not flinch when someone touches you, or to go out in public without scanning the shadows. But my heart is constantly healing itself; it heals itself in the way he began to pick fresh flowers on his way home from work at Namjoon's cafe, it heals itself in the way he kisses my forehead, it heals itself in the way I paint him in only happy colors.

It heals itself in the way we have both healed with help from each other.

A little part of me will always talk to the concrete jungle and be Picasso, and a little part of him will always be the sky and Debussy.

But the biggest part of me will always be Kim Taehyung.

a/n: kdkjdw this is over???? ive been sitting on this epilogue for so long so in a sense ive already felt the loss of being done with this story,, but like,, no more updates. this jungkook and this taehyung are my favorites that ive ever written, i love them both so much :(((

im really thankful to you guys for reading this story, because it started off with such a small idea; "where person a and person b only meet in the rain" and became something with a larger meaning.

alsO,, i looked thru my notes for this story and they were so wild, like originally the abusers werent gonna go to jail and there was gonna be an arson that may or may not have involved jungkooks studio LMAO im so glad i trashed that idea

also,, have any of u noticed the gradual change to proper capitalization bc thats a small detail that is kinda important...it shows jungkook growing up and picking up his pieces :,)

anyway, thanks for reading i love you all!!