Taekook Oneshots

Breathe Again

Take a breath. Just a single breath. Hold it for a second. Two seconds. Three. And then let it go.

There's something about the way the body moves, the way the whole chest expands like a balloon. It's fascinating. Of course, when breathing properly, it's actually the stomach that moves, with the change in position of the diaphragm. But only babies and singers use this technique most of the time. Which is a shame.

But I digress. This isn't about that.

Well, not completely.

Take another breath, make it last the whole of whatever musical phrase comes into your head, whatever's playing in your ears. And then let it go in the same fashion. It's relaxing, in an odd sort of way.

Breathing has always been interesting, of course, past the necessity, the way the chemicals fuse within the bloodstream without conscious thought, the fact that the world seems to just carry on whilst we take in one thing and give out another, relying on the existence of atoms and molecules in order to survive.

It takes us past the massive, past the human squeamishness, down to our fundamental parts, in a way that nothing else seems to. The simplicity of it, and yet the paradoxical complexity of it, is purely astounding. We're all just a mix of things, a few coils of DNA floating endlessly through mainly empty space.

But we still feel present. We still exist, in some way, as conscious people, as thinking individuals, with the intelligence to recognise our own basic makeup. There's still something incredibly human about the way we act, the way our bodies and our minds react to the world around us, sometimes thoughtlessly, sometimes with hesitation and consideration.

But where does that lead us? What does it create, when we are insignificant compared to the universe we're part of, just a speck of dust in some massive ballroom? What's the point of it all?

There's a simple answer to that.

Human existence is tiny. But it is tiny for a reason. We aren't massive, because to be massive is to be terrified of everything smaller, to be massive is to avoid the smaller picture and avoid the individual. We're people so that we can feel something, so that we can be that unique mess of humanity, that beautiful mix of chance and science coming together in almost impossible conditions.

If I wasn't tiny, in comparison to the rest of the world, I don't know if I'd have been lucky enough to find love, lucky enough to catch that one in a million that I'd given up on.

He's unique, in more than one way, strong, emotionally so. He's quiet when he needs to be, serious when he knows that there's something wrong. Most of the time he's bright and cheerful, with a smile that only seems to belong to him when he looks at me. His voice is deeper than the ocean, and his heart expands further than the universe. But he's also a person. A real, living person.

He's the black hole at the centre of my galaxy. In the best way possible.

His skin is made of the gold found at the bottom of a rainbow, his hair the silvery trail of a shooting star, and his eyes have the kindness you'd associate with Mother Nature, a fabulous burnt sienna that just feels like home. He's like a willow tree, slender but strong, with all of the softness of a down feather and all of the power of reinforced titanium.

He's everything at once. Something I never thought possible until I saw him.

Kim Taehyung is only made of atoms, only made of chemicals, a lucky mix of DNA that gives him the traits he has today, given experience and a soul so bright it rivals the sun. He's only another creation of a universe that's moving from order to disorder, and found some perfect moment in the middle in which to place him.

He's not completely flawless, I know that much. He can get annoyed sometimes, and sometimes he cares more about people than he should. He can be too empathetic, and his emotions can get the better of him occasionally. But there's nothing wrong with that.

He's no god, no deity come to test my faith in any religion, no king or queen, no state leader of a republic. He's not a celebrity of any type, not put on any pedestal and worshipped by people who drink in every word he says like it's honey. He doesn't have any major awards, any massive pool of money, any Nobel Prizes to his name or YouTube subscribers. I don't think he even has a channel.

He's just got me.

And I try, fuck, I try to show him that he's a world, that he's a universe, a microcosm of everything I see that's worth anything in all the chaos of the universe. I try to treat him like the king I see him as, without making him more than what he wants to be. Sometimes people don't need status or money to be happy after all. They're only made up of atoms and chemicals all interacting with each other.

Social creatures, animals. Maybe that is something to do with the fact that our very beings are created by the interactions of our ancestors, the relationships between protons and neutrons and neutrons and everything smaller than that. I'm no quantum physicist, but I know some things. I may be a bit of an idiot when it comes to the major problems of life, but I've become like an expert with Taehyung.

And I know that he's more than I deserve, far more than I could ever hope for. That giving heart, that automatic charity. It doesn't come to everyone. And I recognise that. I value that about him. Not his popularity, but his kindness. His ability to put anyone at ease, look after any child without causing them to be unhappy, his affinity with the world around him.

His love for animals, to put it more simply. His love for everything that breathes, everything that lives, his respect for the things that think and move around and grow and try to survive just as humans have tried for millions of years. The day I bought him a dog was the first time he ever told me he loved me, all because he couldn't believe anyone would care enough to look after a puppy with him.

I knew from the second we got together that I would only be able to breathe properly with Kim Taehyung. It wasn't a conscious decision, not for a long time, and then I slowly realised that he was my oxygen. He was the missing piece I'd been searching for all along, in whatever the best cliche way to explain it is. He was the final jigsaw piece, the final molecule to set the system working. The final strand of DNA to create a full person.

All my life, I've wanted to feel complete, but I never understood that you have to be complete by yourself. You're the one with the lungs, the one who can take in the air that keeps you alive. You're the one who can breathe deep enough, like our ancestors and our children do. And nobody can make you do that. They can try and train you, but they can't force every single inhale and exhale, every single sigh, every golden moment.

So maybe Tae just pulled my head out of the water, like a flotation device, helped me support myself and learn how to swim on my own, all whilst I was doing the same thing for him. Life is overwhelming in a million ways, there's too much pressure to be the best of yourself, too much pressure to start a family and have a million children, make a legacy to pass onto them.

That's still the life they preach to us.

It's pressing down on us like metres of ocean above our heads, and we never see it, because we're too busy drowning, too busy trying to take in a mix of hydrogen and oxygen and call it perfect. If you don't ever try to breathe, you'll never have time to think it through, too busy living based on instinct and nature's nurture.

Isn't it better to tread the water, freeze in a moment of time until the cold water shock of adulthood wears off, give ourselves a little bit of time to take in the world around us. Do we really want to be in the city, or do we prefer the country? Would we really be happy here, or do we need to find something else?

How can we ever know if we don't take a chance and swim a little further, so that we can see the alternatives waiting on the horizon, an archipelago of several types of oasis waiting to be discovered? If you can't swim on your own, you can't find that direction. You can't source your own paradise.

Of course, that's different for everyone. We all breathe the same air, but it means different things. We all try and think, our brains forming similar pathways but coming to very different conclusions, our bodies reaching for something completely different depending on what it is we lack.

But I've found a way to build my own. So I think I'll be alright.