"don't say you love me like that; like you're saying goodbye."
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in which yoongi and taehyung are ex-lovers who meet once again in tokyo, spending one last night together, learning how to both love and let go.
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a taegi short story; @springbts...
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Soon a year passes, then two.
The pain recedes with time, until Yoongi doesn't feel like he would break again at the slightest sound of Taehyung's name. He breathes a bit better, starts to walk steadier. It helps that his music program is growing even more demanding, everyday a cacophony of wake up make music eat make music take a quick bath make music go to classes make music, music, music. He runs through energy drinks once he's exhausted his caffeine fuel, where even the strongest espressos from the packed coffee store across his campus fails to keep him up at night.
Yoongi works his hardest ever, and this time he feels like he can't breathe, but not because of a certain boy, and for that he doesn't mind the fatigue that winds down in his bones, settles in his body like an occupant.
Mid-year, Yoongi graduates top of class, claiming the Therese Kleppel Piano Prize. He feels incredibly happy and insanely terrified at the same time, but he wears his oversized graduation robes proudly and accepts his certificate gracefully and still he wishes quietly, just for a second, that it was Taehyung grinning up at him from somewhere in the crowd.
Yoongi's family flies out to see him, and then they all head back home where he spends a good amount of time just reconnecting with old friends back in Seoul, taking time off for himself after two hard-earned years. He doesn't bump into Taehyung but learns that his ex-boyfriend had climbed up positions, now a well-established businessman, and he's busy heading some new acquisition.
Yoongi tries his hardest not to ask if Taehyung is still with Jeongguk, still with the "someone new".
By the end of the year, Yoongi leaves cold, wintry Seoul again, sets out this time for a change of scenery in Tokyo where he starts to play. Genuinely.
Accepting a position as a chamber musician, Yoongi settles into Tokyo the way you would sink slowly into a hot bath or slip amongst your sheets.
There was a sense of freedom, no dangling expectations or deadlines, and Yoongi feels his own self slowly start to steady a little, finding footing in his work and immersing himself in the city; the streets are wide and pretty, and the people are better and Yoongi likes that he doesn't have to prove anything here, anymore.
Yoongi rents out a cramped apartment room he shares with three other twenty-somethings, with whom he slowly grows close to, taking turns to buy take-outs if they're all working late, settling in to watch Netflix if they have a free night. In his spare time he starts working on his songs, entering small musical competitions in preparation for his debut later on.
Songs about Taehyung still, because Yoongi has never really loved another person the way he did Taehyung; but this time the notes do not ring loud in frustration, in grief, in anger.
