Take on Me

15

¤ Dancing
Elisa ↲

So I just put my arms around you, around you
And I hope that I will do no wrong
My eyes are on you, they're on you
And I hope that you won't hurt me

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I double updated today, so make sure you check out Chapter 14 if you haven't already!

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Taehyung was exhausted the following day, having stayed up late talking to Jungkook. Sleep evaded him for the most part afterwards, his mind rampant with thoughts of the younger. But it was all worth it. Knowing Jungkook wasn't laying dead in a ditch somewhere was worth it.

He knew better than to assume the boy was okay. When they were speaking on the phone, it was evident that Jungkook was struggling through something, though what it was Taehyung didn't know. He was tempted to ask what the hell happened several times, but he figured Jungkook would tell him when - and if - he was ready.

He didn't know if that was the right call, but based on his own past experiences, it's what he would have wanted. He just tried to make it painfully clear that Jungkook could trust him if he wanted to talk.

Trust was such a funny concept to Taehyung. He wanted his friends to trust him, Jungkook to trust him. But he had such a difficult time trusting others.

Trust me.

Those two words had been his downfall.

And then he trusted his parents to help him and they let him down. He was ignored. Abandoned. Left to think he somehow invited these bad things into his life.

His parents didn't believe the accusations of an eleven year old - or they just didn't care - so he suffered quietly alone.

After that, he trusted no one.

No one was ever allowed close to him, not unless he knew them before his trauma. He didn't make new friends. He didn't date. He didn't let anyone so much as touch him.

All the things he was expected to experience as a teenager - hugging, kissing, a grope or two - never enticed him. Hell, he could barely touch himself without the urge to throw up. He was ruined and he learned to live with that.

But fuck, after meeting Jungkook, he wished he was whole and shiny and untainted. Never before had he felt the urge to touch or be touched. To trust and to let someone in. He wanted it so badly but he was so damn afraid what would happen. And to ask someone to understand and to live with his brokenness . . . that wasn't fair to anyone.

Especially not to someone like Jungkook, who was whole and shiny and untainted.

But Jungkook was stirring emotions he'd never felt, and he was pretty sure these feelings weren't quite platonic. In the past, he never experienced romantic attraction or sexual desire, convincing him he was asexual or aromantic. It was a fact he lived with for a while now.

And yet there was Jungkook.

This was too much for him to try to understand and process right now, but of course it was all beginning to crash down upon him. Things always happened that way. Life didn't space out it's confusions and challenges into neat little boxes to unpack whenever you were ready. No, it dumped everything down on you like a rainstorm, ready to drown you under its weight.