By the grace of some god he was no longer sure existed, he somehow managed to get home before Taehyung. And there was a bitterness in that too. In knowing that he probably hadn't woken up alone. That his walk of shame was probably going to be significantly less painful than his had been.
Both mentally and physically, because he was pretty much Min Yoongi didn't have a daddy kink and wasn't going to leave Taehyung practically unable to walk without feeling like something was still inside of him.
Taehyung wasn't an agent of his own destruction, the orchestrator behind all of his own misery. Sure, it was unfair to write off all of the hardship's the other had suffered in favor of his own, but it was so difficult not to play 'Shitty Life Comparison' like it was some game show constantly playing within his mind. Taehyung was more likable, more friendly and outgoing. Lying somewhere between an introvert and an extrovert. Some absolute perfect mix of everything.
Envy. That's what it was called. And it was green and it was ugly.
...
Taehyung came stumbling in somewhere in the early afternoon, and he didn't even bothered to get up. Simply stayed in bed , hiding his shame beneath the protective cover of his blankets. Pretended to be asleep when the other had come in to check on him, talking animatedly about something seemingly very important - probably about last night, and Seokjin desperately wanted to forget all of it had ever occurred. Only to silence once he saw him asleep, sighing softly before moving to tuck him in more securely.
He wanted to hate Taehyung sometimes. He did. But it was difficult when he did things like whisper 'I love you my beautiful Jinnie' into his ear and kissed him on the forehead.
Jealousy. That's what it was called. And it was red and it was ugly.
...
"Is that -"
Two hours had been spent in his bathroom that morning, desperately trying to come up with solutions for the mess of bruises that had been left all over his skin. Sure, most of them would be hidden beneath the crisp white of his shirt, but there were fingerprints (actual god forsaken finger prints) on his jaw and he really wasn't sure how he was supposed to explain those away. Sure, piles of concealer and color corrector had seemed like an amazing idea at the time, but they left him with this little bit of doubt constantly wiggling in the back of his mind. Which meant he spent half his time staring at his reflection in whatever surface he could manage to catch it in, making sure everything was still in place and covered and that he wouldn't have to deal with the embarrassing questions that letting someone see would bring.
But of course Taehyung wasn't just anyone and of course he would notice the discoloration the moment Seokjin bent down to retrieve a bin full of silverware for them to sort through and wrap up. It was currently slow, with only a small trickle of customers coming through, and none of them were in any particular need of being baby sat. Which meant they had to find ways to make themselves look busy.
At least they were allowed to sit while they did it.
"No." He realized only after he said it that he had answered entirely too fast and entirely too correctly.
"Holy shit it is." Reaching out, long fingers curled around his collar before he could stop them, reflexes slow and dulled with the shock of it, tugging it down and revealing just how bad it all still was. Bright reds had faded into deep, swirling blues and purples, made worse by the fact that they hadn't quite starting to heal into that sickly yellow quite yet. "Oh -"
"Please don't." He could feel it coming, like a thick tension in the air.
"- my -" But there was no controlling it. No stopping it.
