Pretty | Yoonmin (DISCONTINUED)

forty five

Taehyung began to cry as soon as Jimin had him alone.

It was such a soft kind of crying. The kind that almost seemed pretty, for the tears took their time coating his lashes in glimmering crystals, turning his squinted eyes foggy. They pushed and pushed against that soft lining, and then slowly fell, like stars dousing his cheeks. Glimmering as gifts from the skies as they traced the pretty slopes and hills of his delicate face in aching cobalt.

His shoulders shook so lightly, Jimin wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't hugged Taehyung immediately after the first tear fell. His body was a warmth he was so familiar with, their beings adjusting to intertwine at the perfect angle. Taehyung's hair brushing against his cheek, his quivering mouth warm against the crook of his neck, arms clinging to him. He could hardly hear his sobs, but he felt it in the shaking whispers that pooled in his collarbones at each tiny heave. And all awkwardness forgotten, true adoration for the boy in his arms filled him up, almost fending off the flooring culpability threatening to burn him alive.

"I'm so sorry."

He felt Taehyung startle at his whispered apology. Where his hands lay, pressing loving heat into his lower back, his skin prickled—cold and itching, feeling undeserving under such a soft touch.

"My Taehyungie," He gasped, and the thickness in his throat bubbled over, searing and lining his stumbling teeth. "I'm so so so sorry for snapping at you. I'm so sorry, I—I got so scared. Scared like I haven't been in years, and I just felt to sick, so panicked, I couldn't think," His fingers scrunched around the fabric of Taehyung's coat. "And it's not an excuse, because I know, Taetae, I know you. I know how scared you were, I know how good you are and that—that you would never—"

His tongue ached, and the words dissolved on his lips. He sighed, burying his pounding head in Tae's thick cinnamon scent. "What I'm trying to say is, I'm so sorry for snapping at you, you didn't deserve it, and though I was clearly freaking the fuck out, it was no reason to get frustrated with you."

A few moments of silence passed between them. Just enough quiet to feed the anxiety still churning in the pit of his stomach, enough to make him a little scared as he pushed his nose into the younger's trembling shoulder.

Then there was a shuddering gasp, and a stuttered word murmured against the shell of his ear.

"Jimin," He cried. His body tensed in his arms. Jimin felt a heat on his cheek, and realized the wetness of Tae's weeping eyes had smeared over his skin. "Jimin I—you, you don't need to apologize...you handled it so well. I would have—I would have yelled at me too..."

"Taetae—"

"I was petrified," Taehyung whispered, and something broken in his voice shook Jimin down to his very core. "I was...I was fucking paralyzed, useless. It was so scary. I mean we...Hobi and I, we expected it, of course we did. We knew the anniversary was soon, and he was showing plenty of warning signs, and it's worse this year cause Seohyun, she—well, he...we knew. We talked to Dr. Choi as soon as he began acting differently. When he went out with us, he was just so tired, so detached. He just watched us talk with that look in his eyes...the hazy look. We couldn't get him to come back to us, not completely. He was more irritable and sometimes he just stared off into space for—for minutes and minutes and—he didn't sleep at night. He would come over to my house or Hobi's, and he wouldn't say anything, he would just get in bed. And when he thought I was asleep, I would hear him," His voice cracked. "I would hear him walking around, or talking to himself, or—or crying."

The ground felt strange and light beneath their feet. Their legs were weakened by a different sort of illness, that burning in their veins and on the surface of their shallow bones, and Jimin clung to his Taehyungie. He kissed his soaked cheek, feeling his mouth trembling.