Until We Drown : Vhope

【パート10】

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“Do you remember anything about a small red ball when you were a kid?” Taehyung rests his head against the glass and stares at the curves in Hoseok’s fingers. The last time he’d fed on Hoseok, he'd seen the memory of the object, and it made him curious since.

Hoseok watches Taehyung’s reflection through the glass, “Yeah, actually I do.” He blinks and looks at the ceiling in thought, “My mom gave it to me when I was about six. She had this huge smile on her face when she placed it in my hands, like suddenly she’d handed the world over to
me and not some toy that I would accidentally pop a few months later.”
Taehyung hums and licks his lips, “Maybe she did give you the world.”
Hoseok scoffs and shakes his head lightly, “No.” He looks down at his open palms, “No, she gave me my childhood and left it in my own hands.”

Silence consumes the room, and Hoseok allows himself to explore his curiosity and memories.

Normally he wouldn't trudge into the depths of his mind, but he wasn’t alone this time, which guaranteed that he wouldn’t stray too far.

After a few minutes, Taehyung shifts inside the cell, “Hey, can you come sit in here with me? This glass is pissing me off because I really like touching you.”

Taehyung’s body is the slightest bit warmer as he leans his chest against Hoseok’s back from behind, hands coming around the front to embrace his middle, and he thinks it’s oddly comforting, like lukewarm water on days when he fell ill. He lets Taehyung press his nose at the spot behind
his ear, through his hair, against his spinal chord. He can feel Taehyung slightly sniffing and inhaling his scent, and when he feels the neckline of his shirt pulled aside to reveal the top of his shoulder, he turns his head to look behind him.

“Are you hungry already? I let you feed yesterday,” Hoseok says amusedly and lifts his eyebrows.

What he doesn’t expect is for Taehyung’s lips to replace the feeling of teeth as he presses a small kiss to the juncture between his shoulder and neck, trailing more the rest of the way down to the bruise on his arm. His eyes soften at the feeling.

Hoseok pulls away and turns to face Taehyung. He takes the time to revel in Taehyung’s sharp eyes and plush lips, reaching forward to swipe his thumb along his bottom lip slowly to feel every line in the skin.

“I wouldn’t have to feel this way if you weren’t such a pretty little thing… you know that?”Hoseok mumbles, mostly to himself, holding his thumb at the corner of Taehyung’s lips. They
were slightly red on the inner parts, like blood had stained the pale flesh the same way wine spilt on white fabric.

Taehyung’s tongue peeks out and pulls the tip of his thumb into a warm, inviting mouth. “Tell me how you feel,” he breathes.

Hoseok leans forward and ghosts his lips over Taehyung’s stained ones. It’d been weeks since he wished they'd stain his too.
He pulls his hand away, biting on the inside of his mouth as a string of Taehyung’s saliva follows his thumb almost obscenely, his mouth partly open to reveal just the tips of his teeth. Hoseok presses his forehead gently against Taehyung’s.

He whispers, like this, before he molds their lips together.

Hoseok thinks Taehyung is a mellow evening in September, dusk casting soft, sweet air on the moon, but he’d never seen anybody with rays so covered in black.

He thinks Taehyung has the perfect hands and thumbs even if they held a past so dark that even the brightest of blood couldn't reveal it. But Hoseok never asks about the mothers he’d killed or the lovers he’d left to die alone, separated with matching necklaces soaked in blood. Instead he
reminds himself of survival and life whenever he looks into Taehyung’s glinting grey eyes. It was only fair because Taehyung never asked about the Syloe children he’d executed or the harmless Syloe women he’d killed that had begged to be saved. There was a list of his regrets, numbered
off only at the odds. Hoseok had done more than a handful of things that he didn’t want to be reminded of either.