"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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"Hyung...?" and there comes Taehyung's voice, warm like honeyed sunlight, trailing into Yoongi's daze, "hyung, are you okay? What were you going to say?"
"I'm- I just-" Yoongi tries to speak but his nose stings and his mouth feels slippery and tears are starting to press press press again, and the feeling overwhelms him so he stops.
Pauses.
Taehyung is slowly taking notice of Yoongi's change in mood again, gaze trailing Yoongi's reddened nose and the beads of teardrops forming on his eyelashes. He shifts closer, murmuring hey come on, come here and then Yoongi feels warm arms around him drawing them both up into a sitting position. The white blanket slips down their chests to pool around their waist.
Yoongi feels the weight of Taehyung's stare, so full of worry it feels heavy on his skin. For the first time ever, Yoongi doesn't like it. He feels angry, mostly guilty, for how he's the one who always receives - because that's what he's been doing all those times they were together.
Yoongi is always receiving receiving receiving, and he'd been too caught up in life, too complacent with love, to wonder if sometimes, Taehyung had opted to keep his burdens to himself, for fear of it adding on to Yoongi's. That Taehyung would be hesitant and drained from supporting Yoongi more than he does himself, and that he in turn would never want to make Yoongi feel worse, so Taehyung would keep quiet.
Because Taehyung is patient. Because Taehyung is kind. Because Taehyung is tired and he ends up a little too empty and his own emotions soon give way as well.
And that was, Yoongi thinks, why they'd broken up.
Because Taehyung is always giving, and Yoongi is always taking, and in this world an equation that does not balance will never lead to a solution that works.
(They didn't work, in the end.)
"No, no, I'm okay. Really. I am," Yoongi says this with a little too much conviction. He shudders a little, trying to hold back his tears, and he looks back at Taehyung, and his fingers unconsciously cups Taehyung's cheeks the way his had once so tenderly held Yoongi's face. Taehyung's eyes soften as if he, too, is remembering, and the younger leans into Yoongi's touch ever so gently.
Yoongi's heart cracks open, and a tear slips down his cheeks, tastes like salt brine of the sea on his lips.
"That night..." Yoongi takes a deep breath, feels the sting in his nose spread across his face and down his chest, a painful squeeze, "That night, we talked about my stage fright, and how I said I don't know what to do about it. And you said to me, and I would remember this from that moment on and long after tonight ends too - you told me to find you in the crowd. That if I was nervous, I could always find you, and I could always play the piano as if I was only playing it for you, and only you."
