hiraeth - a taekook fanfiction

5

Jeongguk doesn't plan on talking to Taehyung. What he does plan on is avoiding his ex for the rest of his life and pretending that he didn't get his heart broken by drowning his misery in tequila and vodka and all that hard shit. What he doesn't plan on is being crossfaded out of his fucking mind and standing in front of Taehyung's apartment complex on a weekday in nothing but a t- shirt and jeans.
Avoiding Taehyung was clearly doing Jeongguk well, but his friends' words bounced off the walls of his conscience all day and it only took five hours of non-stop drinking and an extra line of cocaine to make him finally give in.
Walking up five flights of stairs while the world is spinning in circles is hard and Jeongguk isn't quite sure why he didn't just take the elevator. But he's kind of, sort of, really drunk and the amount of times he's tripped and cut his arm on the edge of a step or fell against the handrail and almost went tumbling down four stories to his death doesn't deter him one bit.
It's not the blood that is slowly oozing out of the minor cut or his banged knees that kill his courage, no. He's banging on room 503 slurring out Taehyung's name and some other things that he can't quite remember because his mouth is running ahead of his brain. What does kill Jeongguk's courage is when a very irritated looking Taehyung swings the door open and Jeongguk practically falls flat on his face, but still manages to have the reflex to grip the door frame and save himself the embarrassment.
There was nothing like reuniting with your ex after a couple of months by collapsing into his apartment.
Taehyung's eyes widen in surprise and Jeongguk just stares. There's a long stretch of silence because neither of them know what to say, but then the emotions seem to drain out of the older boy's face.
"Jeongguk," he says curtly, hardly a greeting.
Jeongguk had come here with a plan but now after seeing the boy he loves after all these months, he's suddenly reminded of every beautiful thing he had missed and his mind is blank. Even in pajamas with messy hair, Taehyung still manages to look breathtaking. He still manages to make Jeongguk stupid.
"What are you doing here?" he asks rigidly. "It's two in the fucking morning and thirty degrees out. What the hell are you wearing?"

How do you tell someone that you destroyed that you still love them without breaking them down even further? Jeongguk doesn't know. He doesn't know how to tell Taehyung that he needs him and without him, Jeongguk is dried and cracked earth and his lands are barren and every piece that anyone tries to pick up of him fucking crumbles. He doesn't know how to tell Taehyung that he misses the simple things like holding hands and butterfly kisses. Jeongguk just doesn't know how to explain the fact that he still has all of their text messages- all 6,874 of them, or how he can never bring himself to delete all of their pictures because there's always a voice whispering at the back of his head, saying I don't want to forget. I don't want to forget.
How- how do you tell someone who's better off without you that you don't want to let them go?
Jeongguk wonders if there's a book somewhere out there that'll teach him how to let people go because he doesn't know how to.
"I-" Jeongguk hiccups. "I luh-love you."
And it's not the way Jeongguk wanted to say it- looking about ready to fall over and pass out. It's not how Jeongguk wanted to say it, but it's probably the most honest he's ever been with the boy he's still pining after.
"You're drunk," Taehyung says, and Jeongguk hates how tired and defeated he sounds. "Go home, Jeongguk."
But just as he moves to close the door, Jeongguk's lashes an arm out and he places a firm palm against it, stumbling forward as he does so.
"Wait!" he shouts a little too loudly. "Wait, Tae. Puh-please list'n to me. Can't we jus' talk? Tae-"
"Don't," the anger dancing along the edges of his tone isn't as translucent as he'd like it to be. "Don't call me that anymore. You lost that right the moment you decided that I was just a fucking joke."
Jeongguk gapes in horror at his words. "Yuh-yer' not a fuhking joke. Tae, I-
"How can you do that?" Taehyung cuts off his drunken pleading and Jeongguk doesn't think that the dozens of girls he's broke equates to emotions reflected in the older boy's eyes. "Tell me, Jeongguk, how?"