♔ Royal Pain ♔ → kth | jjk

XXV

Jeongguk was stunned, to say the least. 

To say the most would be to say that Jeongguk felt like he had just watched every ray of sunshine in the sky splinter and shatter into slivered shards of glass that sliced through every part of his being. 

But Jeongguk wasn't poetic enough to really formulate it to those words exactly.

The point being, Jeongguk was... well, overwhelmed?

Never had he seen Taehyung break down in such a way that was so out of the blue and sudden. Jeongguk hadn't felt his heart race this fast in a long time. He could hear it pounding in his ears, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of Taehyung's gut-twisting cries. 

"Taehyung?" Jeongguk whispered in his ear, the concern becoming too much for him to bear. "Tae, what do you mean?"

Taehyung pulled his head back and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, trying to clear his blurry vision as best he could while the tears were still pooling. 

He didn't answer. 

"Taehyung, please." Jeongguk begged, pulling away his hands to make the blonde boy look at him. 

And maybe this was the wrong time to be thinking this but God was Taehyung gorgeous. 

His sloppily bleached hair was shining in the sunlight and his skin glowed with utter radiance. His cheeks were a shade of red and were glistening with fresh tears, as were his chocolate eyes. His nostrils were flaring as he was obviously trying to his best to swallow back the rest of his tears, sniffling and gasping for air every few seconds. 

Now Jeongguk knew that crying wasn't supposed to be pretty; by no means was there anything besides 'ugly crying.' 

There was no scenario where a single tear drop would so conveniently slip from the corner of the eye only to drip down the bridge of the nose. Where one came, more were to follow and no human had that amount of self-control, did they? Jeongguk had yet to meet someone who did. 

No, crying was in fact messy, and it was ugly, sad, messy; it was gross sometimes too, depending. But when Jeongguk says Taehyung is beautiful in this very moment, he isn't speaking of his burning colored cheeks or his clenched teeth; it's everything else. 

Jeongguk may be pretty closed off emotionally to some people, but he could appreciate when someone was open. 

Taehyung was wide open. He was here in this moment letting a whole damn break down in front of Jeongguk, pouring his heart out, and he was letting himself be vulnerable and fragile. He was being honest. 

So while Taehyung may look like a mess of snot and tears, Jeongguk still saw him as nothing less than gorgeous. Truly. 

Unfortunately the heart fluttering thought did nothing to lessen the blow of Taehyung's weak response. 

"I'm leaving tomorrow. Early morning." 

And Jeongguk felt his world had stopped. 

"You're leaving..." He whispered back, echoing the words out loud as his mind rushed to process. Jeongguk felt that he might cry, too. "You're- You're leaving. Oh- Okay. That's- Okay." He sucked on his teeth to force the lump in his throat back down into his gut. 

"Please don't be mad." Taehyung whispered desperately. "I don't want to go, I swear."

Jeongguk shook his head quickly, pulling him back to his chest. "It's okay, Taehyung, I'm not angry. I promise... Just... shocked. That's all." He said gently. "Why didn't you tell me sooner...?"

Taehyung burrowed his head into the crook of Jeongguk's neck, finding the scent of his expensive cologne both soothing and upsetting. 

"I was scared of how you would react, I guess."