The Last Of Us | tk ✓

twenty-eight | you and i again

Beneath the mild padding of Jeongguk's fingers, Taehyung's tendons felt sturdy, tensed. Seconds elapsed in hymn for the balmy intimacy, a gradual philosophy of fondness residing in the feathery smiles once they come apart, smartly trudging off to their own space, bearing gracious, perhaps somewhat timid.

The ancient door moans open when Taehyung enters the room wherein Hara is, her braid disheveled and round eyes bloodshot, her hip resting on the windowsill, the early morning sun rays kissing her tender skin aloof, head lowered.

Taehyung drew nearer her, mouth clasped shut, inaudibly beckonging her to propose him in a buoyant exchange of dialogue, honed tip of a lip quirked in delicate, innocuous askance.

Hara registered him for a swift glance, a millisecond of a toothy grin, yet the features slacken, shoulders pulled back and gaze on the window pane pouring out ample sunlight, now. Taehyung almost mulls over if a conversation at this moment can be established, however Hara hums, her side profile bathing in the nature's beam. Her rumbles inquire salvingly, "Do you wonder if the efforts of surving are all but fruitful?"

The window doesn't reply, so Taehyung does, murmuring in compliance, "I mean, if I die, it does sounds dumb as fuck to cross the whole country with a guy who is a dick but also a sweetheart, not that I'm complaining. But." He must be rambling; Hara only smiles a tiny smile. "See, I'm in-" Should I? We aren't even close, jeez. Hara bumps her eyebrows, quizzical, facing him.

He mustn't.

Gulping in an impractical attempt to conceal his off-put morale, he proceeds exasperately, tone dropped theatrically, "I'm fed up!" He asserts in a manner outrageous, "So fucking done! Who likes to piss in a bush? Not me! And the number two! Whatever happened to keeping your asses clean?" Exhaling hugely, he shakes his head multiple times.

Hara snorts with childlike decency. "I grieve your grieve, bro. You got this. Godspeed." She clicks her tongue and winks at him, gorgeously if one could define, contrary to the topic at hand. Something a little speck in her vowels felt putrid and subdued.

Taehyung nods, fathoms if she would veil her soul from him like he did when he questions gingerly, eliciting; "Anything the matter?" He wished she could open up. Assuming Namjoon shields her from about everything, a rebellious self in herself would hope to procure manifestations to purr down the lioness that wants to prove herself. Must be.

Rested upon her fist is her squished cheek, which spills out like a deflated bubble, cutely so, eyes wandering, tiresome. "Aren't you..." She trails, searching for words on the creaky floorboards, advancing nonchalantly, "Aren't you scared, Taehyung?" Away and farther she drags her downcast gawp.

Taehyung shifts his weight on his feet as he utters bleakly, a flare of agony spitting and hissing within his chest, "Of what?" For fuck's sake, he knows what.

"Turning," she replies promptly with a belated shrug. Not entirely.

It's his turn to delay, to flounder, to sweep the brick walls that are coming apart. He is immune. Why would he be? "Of course I am," he pronounced matter-of-factly, levelling their eyes with each other, enunciating elegantly, "Everyone fears. No one is aware how it is. It's like death, but worse." Remorse engulfs him. "It doesn't matter, though. We die one way or other, don't we? It's death we shouldn't be afraid of." He echoed, wistful: "It's death we shouldn't be afraid of."

Hara scowls at him. "Our death, or someone we love?" There's a litter stuck in her hair. Taehyung leans over to pluck it out, flicking it away, turning on his heels and flinging himself on a mouldy old mattress, muffled when he finally answers against the pillow; "Both, Hara."

Silence greets the room doused in gold. Hara, one last time, phrases humanely in a distinct whisper, "Good night, Tae." The guy was deep in slumber already.

Only if he heard the endearment in her farewell.

Conscious will hit him once Hara is atop him, growling, drooling for flesh, slitted eyes flashing yellow, fingers clawing to shred him apart, murder him as they wrestle, yowling so maniacal, her shirt ripped open to showcase the popping blue veins around a bitemark dripping with pus and blood below her shoulderblade.

Trepidation seethes into Taehyung's system, counterattacks minimalizing. He hears rushing feet, a loud gunshot, Hara's lifeless body plunging unto him, heart bleeding profusely, both of theirs, painting his yellow sweater scarlet. He grunts and sniffles, vision blurry, scrambling out of underneath her to bite back a sob as he confronts who he presumed was Jeongguk.

It's Namjoon with the gun as they both tower over him.

He falls to his knees, gun clattering away from him as he wails, hair clutched by his quivering hands, breaking into a million pieces in front of them yet still so cruelly intact. Tears never stop, glistening on his reddened skin, hard to swallow, harder to breathe, hardest to live with the truth.

Jeongguk and Taehyung keep their distance from Namjoon.

His swollen muscles taut as he examines his precarious hands in the wake of a stretched while, hiccuping, utterly motionless. Like the fucking god he was at combat, he swoops for his firarm. Click. Trained point-blank at Taehyung, who has acquired a coin-like item, arms up in submission but the scepticism of drooped lashes clashing his demeanour.

Jeongguk intervenes, muttering deligently, edging forward thereon, "Get out of your head, Namjoon. This is not his fault." His pallor strickens since Namjoon doesn't response, conjoining to the palpable accusation, jaw clamped, "Not. His. Fault." His heart would collapse with the rate it was beating that very moment.

"You are right." Namjoon's rasp is crippled. Not once does he acknowledge his sister's dead body, positioning the nozzle on his own temple. "It's― it's m-my wrong-doing." Taehyung ought to shout him down, scream at the top of his lungs how erroneous his statement was. It doesn't come; Namjoon doesn't desire anything more.

He shuts his eyes tight.

The snub of the gun is tremulous.

He lets himself breathe one last time.

The trigger is pulled.

Jeongguk was thus far alongside the poor bloke, having knocked over the pistol before the bullet can even graze Namjoon, who, upon grasping his perception, stumbles as if tipsy, steadied by the younger, ordained to meet the latter's assiduous gape.

"Namjoon," he asseverates subtly, seizing the elder by his trembling shoulders, "You get out of here. Complete what you started, as cheesy as it sounds. Or her death will mean nothing. Nothing. Never let pain take over your mental stability, it is nothing but futile." He desires the other to interpret this. "Go. We will take care of her." He pushes him away, throat constricting, at the verge of his own outburst.

Taehyung strode over to them, morose. "Here, take this with you. She found it on the bank that day we washed up on it." He slips the Firefly pendent in Namjoon's calloused palm, moping his cheeks dry afterwards. It may be used as an asset to pass as a Firefly. It may aid him.

"Go." Jeongguk gives him another fragile shove. Nothing additional preserved to confer.

Namjoon does, his goodbye microscopic, as if the affliction in his voice would demolish the air in the room into splinters to exhibit his embedded torment.

Hara was his sagacious yet guileless sister, ultimately. His little Hara, his utopian little hill. His lovely, beautiful Hara.

Gone.

―

im-
im sowwy.

& thank you.
thank you sm
for 50k. ever
told you i love
you? i do,
u mtherfkers. 😭❤