IN THE WINTER, TAEHYUNG was with a boy who would caress his face lovingly when he was high off the smoke and alcohol. He dyed his hair gray when he was with him so that they could match, and the boy only told him how much he loved it after hours inside his bedroom and they were a tangle of sweaty, naked limbs. He would only tell Taehyung he loved him after having his fourth glass of wine. When he told his friends about the boy, they told him that he should do whatever made him happy. And Taehyung realized he wasn't really happy. At least, not in the way he wanted to be happy.
In spring, he met a pleading boy that hung off his words and tasted like cigarettes and coffee. He told Taehyung that he loved him many, many times. But Taehyung knew the words meant nothing, and that the slits of red on his wrists spoke for themselves.
"If you leave me, I won't live anymore." He would say all the time. When Taehyung told his friends, they told him to wash his hands off the vulnerable boy. Needless to say, he did live.
In the summer, he met a cold girl. She whispered words of venom into his ear when nobody was looking. She left bruises into his milky pale skin that he would cover with long sleeves. She would tell him that the cuts and bruises were something that he could remember her by and so he accepted them. She told him that she loved him too much and that's why she was doing what she was doing. He told himself that he deserved it. When Taehyung's friends finally caught sight of the bruises, they gripped his arms and forced him to face them, where he broke down and kept repeating, "I deserve it, it was my fault."
And in autumn, he was a broken boy holding scathing memories of the past. And then Jimin came with bright orange hair and blinded him with smiles. Somehow, he managed to keep the demons away from the haunted boy all the while littering sugary kisses into his skin. He did not have to ask his friends, he knew that this was the boy that he could grow old loving.
