The Dusk Gallery | Taehyung x BTS

12 Years Before

Twelve years before Taehyung decided to die, he sat in his room, flicking through a comic. The room was average, with a single bed, a bedside lamp glowing over him, his homework sprawled all over his desk which he swore he would get to later.

In the corner of the room, his cousin, Daehan, sat on one of the bean bag chairs, indulging in his own world of a book he was reading. It was quiet in the room apart from the turning of the occasional page which seemed to only be intensified by the otherwise silent room.

As Taehyung's eyes scanned the words on the page he wasn't actually taking anything in. Sure he was looking but he just kept re-reading the same phrase over and over and over again. Clearly something else was on his mind.

His leg kept bouncing up and down, kept biting the inside of his cheek out of nerves, his breath becoming a little more loud with every passing second.

It was enough for Daehan, who was 2 years older, to peel his eyes off of his novel and up to his brunette cousin. "What's the matter?"

As if he was just caught red handed in the middle of a crime, Taehyung's head snapped up, eyes wide and nervous "Huh? What do you mean?"

"You're all jittery".

"Am I?"

Daehan rolls his eyes and for a moment closes his book to focus on the 15 year old. "You're not fooling me you idiot. What's wrong? I'm going to beat it out of you otherwise".

It was an empty threat really. They never fought. They were as close as brothers, and haven't fought since they were both 11 and 9. They grew out of that. In fact they were very close. And that is exactly why Taehyung decided to speak up.

"I need to tell my parents something today". His  head hung low as he admitted it out loud. It made it much more real. Like he truly had to do it, now that it was out in the universe.

"And what's that?" Daehan asked, his curiosity definitely peaking.

Rather than waste time stewing in his worry and thought, Taehyung decided to just come out with it. One two three, one two three come on!

"That I'm gay"

"Oh"

"Yeah"

"You're gay?"

Taehyung presses his lips together and nods once.

"Okay. Well..." the tone of voice coming from his cousin worried Taehyung. Was he going to curse at him, beat him, laugh at him? Something was off. He was awoken from his intense staring by Daehan suddenly on the bed beside him, with his hand on Taehyung's knee.

Carefully their eyes met and Taehyung was worried what the next words out of his mouth would be.

"You know I love you no matter what. I just..did you think about how your parents would react?" there was a reason he asked this. Sometimes his parents weren't the...easiest to be around.

Ah, yeah. Of course he had.

"I have. I mean. I imagined a lot of different scenarios. Where they both say it's fine and they love me. Where they both resent me. Where one accepts me and one doesn't. I can't predict what will happen but christ hyung I can't be keeping it in anymore. It's eating me alive".

"Okay. Okay. You do what you need to do. I'm here for you. My mum is here for you too. You know she would never..."

"I know" Taehyung nods, a grateful smile on his face. "I'll tell them tonight"

And he did.

And it didn't go as well as he would have hoped.