4.6 | Dark Ages ✓

+ 0 5 : 0 0

+ 0 5 : 0 0

HE IS GETTING by without her.

Surviving his Dark Ages is like trying to sunlight amidst a long, cold winter. Sometimes, he catches a glimpse of it. A visit from a relative he never knew existed, or a phone call from an old friend he didn't know he had. Other days, he wallows in a familiar blend of grief and guilt, haunted by the ghost of her lips on his mouth and her fingers on his skin. He can almost—almost—feel her there with him, and yet she isn't.

Then there are the dark days. He's buried six-feet beneath the snow, shivering and sobbing from just how much he misses her, how lost he is without her, how broken he is because he still loves her. Those are the days when his brothers find him, curled up in his room or hunched over her grave. No words need to be exchanged as they pull him up, shove a mug of coffee into his hands and sit beside him until he stops shaking.

Those days are the worst.

Then there are the better days. They come three years after the end of the Dark Ages, and two years into his therapy.

One day, he wakes up and steps outside. Instead of seeing the dark gray clouds looming overhead, he opens his eyes and sees—the fresh green grass, raindrops on the windows, a crack of sunlight between the clouds. He looks not at the closed buds on the rose bush, but at the blooming roses turned skywards. He drags in a deep breath and inhales the petrichor surrounding him; feels his own pulse thrum steadily from within.

He thinks to himself—it's a better day today.

And then it is.

It's that simple. A new perspective, a glass half full, a trick of the mind. And everything changes. Of course, there are still days when he falls apart, stumbles back a step after taking two forward. But once he makes an effort to find contentment in the little things—a cup of coffee, a phone call from one of the men he'd saved, a snarky joke from one of his brothers—his days become easier.

Contentment.

That's what he looks for now. He can't taste happiness when she's taken that away with her passing. But he'll settle for content because it's as good as it'll get without her, and it's what keeps him sane.

He come to a halt as he stares at the familiar house across the street. Five years have passed since the end of the Dark Ages, and that house is no longer his.

Now, it's a memorial—not just for her, but for the ones in this town who'd been lost in the fight against Generation F. There are many of them. Victims who were killed and who were turned. People whose bravery would never be awarded posthumously and who would be forgotten as the Dark Ages fade into a mere period of history. But this memorial makes the survivors remember. It tells a story of courage and sacrifice and loss, once upon a time.

And whenever he looks at it, he hears an echo of her voice in her head—I didn't save you so that you could throw your life away, Taehyung. Promise me that when you go back to the future, you'll treasure it.

So he does just that.

He'd already moved into the house opposite—the one where she'd given him the key to. The other house. In retrospect, it's quite fitting that he stays there, because it had been the place where he'd once lived in to watch over himself. He'd been without her knowledge, her guidance, her. It was the first time he'd been his own hero.

It's only apt that he continues to do that till today.

Seokjin and Namjoon had moved in with him—first to keep an eye out, then because they were family, and he couldn't kick them out no matter how much they got on his nerves, sometimes. Seokjin nags and Namjoon clutters. But he puts up with them because you have your family, she'd told him before, that's a good place to start.