Title: The One That Got Away
Theme/Genre: Letting Go
Notes: Sad. Talks of past death.
Word Count: 1.6k
Taeyong placed his cardboard box down quietly, the sound of it hitting the wooden floor the only thing reverberating around the empty room. It was full of broken vinyls, trinkets, and hidden secrets. It was full of things he no longer needed, things of his pasts, and things he simply wanted to let go of. But as he paused to stretch and glance around the now lifeless childhood bedroom, his eyes were drawn back to the half opened box by some gravitational, magnetic force.
Taeyong chewed his bottom lip, contemplating diving into the box again and thus delving into a rabbit hole of his past. But it had always been physical over mental for him, and before he could stop himself, he was sitting on the cold floor and opening up the box to take a peek inside. Just to make sure nothing was missing, he told himself, just to make sure he hadn't accidentally left something out. And so, he rummaged through the box again, taking out each item piece by piece.
His old, tattered teddy bear his aunt had gifted him on his fifth birthday. The scarf his father had sewn for him the tenth Christmas. An array of old records. And finally, hidden beneath the rubble was a photo book. He had placed it down at the bottom on purpose. Out of sight, out of mind. The less he saw it, the less of an urge he had to go through it again - and yet, here he was, sitting cross legged with a purple photo book in his hands, threads frayed at the edges.
It had been years since he'd gone through it, and part of him had wished to forget it until he found it again by accident. He guessed he'd hidden it on purpose - behind the bookshelf he never used, but Johnny had found it.
Johnny, one day, had found him.
Taeyong's palm splayed over the cover, feeling the hardness of it under his hand, like a book full of treasured secrets waiting to be unlocked. And that was exactly what it was. Priceless memories he had dug a grave for and buried into the deepest, darkest corners of his mind, never to be retrieved again. His fingers trembled noticeably, and he held his breath, a hurricane of emotions spurring within him as his fingers pulled back the cover to open the very first page of the photo book.
Nothing.
Staring back at him was nothing. Nothing but the curved, italicised signature of Jaehyun in faded, black pen, front and centre. It was dated '08 in the corner, the year in which he and Jaehyun were both 17 and 18 respectively. The year in which they'd met. And the year in which their timeless romance began. Taeyong's name was written underneath his, and it was different from how he wrote now, more rushed back then, like they were running out of time. There was a heart in between the middle of both signatures, and Taeyong's thumb caressed the words attached.
Taeyong and Jaehyun, together forever.
It was sappy, sweet, and disgustingly romantic, like Jaehyun had been to him. But it was a lie, Taeyong thought as he smiled down at it. A lie that had cursed them.
Breathing out shakily, Taeyong turned the page, and his breath hitched sharply. It was Jaehyun smiling back at him - young, beautiful, coloured in black and white, and the youthfulness in his features shown by the lack of worry lines to pull his skin taut. Taeyong had them now, though. He had them back then, too, every time he frowned. Jaehyun had been carefree, Taeyong was the worrier, and he remembered how every time his lips would curve downwards, Jaehyun would take the skin of his cheeks between his fingers and pull them back up again.
Taeyong's heart fluttered looking down at him. It fluttered, then it squeezed, then it pounded and threatened to swell and burst all at once. On the next page was a picture of their hands intertwined, one the Taeyong had taken at an odd angle. His own hands physically tingled, like it did every time Jaehyun would hold it, energy coursing through him and causing him to buzz and thrum with excitement. Taeyong's hands had been soft, they still were, but he could remember Jaehyun's without touch - how rough they were, like sandpaper grating against his palms from tear and wear, a result of working in his father's garage.
But to him, they felt perfect. They felt perfect linked with his and intertwined. They felt perfect when Jaehyun would cradle his face and dot kisses all over his mouth, nose, and lashes, a kiss on every wisp. They felt perfect when his hands would roam Taeyong's body, firm and possessive, reminding Taeyong that he could be nowhere else and that Taeyong himself would rather have nowhere else to be. His hands were Taeyong's second favourite physical feature. The first had been Jaehyun's smile. There were moons in his cheeks and stars in his eyes.
Taeyong flipped the page again, paper razor sharp and chest constricting almost painfully. It was them together in this one now. Jaehyun's arm was around his shoulder, pulling Taeyong's head into the crook of his neck as they both smiled into the camera. Taeyong's hair was pink at the time, an act of rebellion towards his parents, but Jaehyun could never dye his. He couldn't rebel. Not if he wanted food, water, and a roof over his head. Jaehyun's parents had been strict, Taeyong was privileged, and yet, he still followed every single one of Taeyong's risk-taking whims.
A dark spot dabbed unto the page, wetting the picture and spreading out across the it. He hadn't noticed himself crying, nor the stinging in his eyes, because he had only been paying attention to the photo, Jaehyun, and the way his heart ached and throbbed, like it had been drained and stripped of every drop of blood, left carcass. Taeyong wondered if that was how Jaehyun felt in his last moments. He wondered if the ache in his chest was slow and dull or sharp and sporadic. He wondered how much it hurt.
On the next page was Taeyong alone this time, sitting in the chair of a now closed down tattoo parlour. He remembered the giddy feeling in his chest as he waited for them both to get their matching tattoos. Taeyong had been the one to suggest it - Taeyong had been the one to suggest everything - but Jaehyun had come up with the idea. It was still there on his ring finger. An infinity sign.
"For when we get married," Jaehyun said, lips murmuring against his skin softly as he kissed Taeyong's hands. "For eternity."
Taeyong choked back a sob at the memory of Jaehyun's words and how, at the time, they had been said with so much sureness and so much conviction that Taeyong hadn't bothered to question it. He would never have of thought Jaehyun as a liar until after it happened. But maybe Jaehyun wasn't a liar, maybe he had believed his own words. Maybe he'd thought they'd last forever, in this lifetime and the next, and maybe he'd thought he would be able to overcome his demons. But Jaehyun wasn't that strong. Taeyong knew it now. And Jaehyun knew it too.
Taeyong flipped through the pages quickly, each picture a mirror into the past, making a picture reel as they faded into one another. Two years. Just two years, and the book had now weighed so heavily in his hands. It was a blur through the tears, but he stopped, blinking them away as he came to the very last page.
Jaehyun's suicide note.
The emotions he felt were raw and fresh, like the wound had been reopened - or perhaps it had never closed. Perhaps the gorging hole in his chest and heart had been there in all the years Jaehyun had left him. It stung him as if a million little needles were being pricked into him, pain seeping past his veins and into his bones as he reread the note again and again and again, the words never changing. Jaehyun's handwriting hadn't been as neat as usual, not nearly as careful - it had been scribbled and scrawled, like he was running out of time, like the demons that were hiding in the cracks of his skull were ready to come out of hiding and take rein.
Jaehyun loved him. Jaehyun loved him so much. He'd even said it in the letter - signed it off in Taeyong's name alone. Not his mother, not his father - Taeyong.
Taeyong wept into his hands.
Taeyong wept, and cried, and his body wracked with uncontrolled sobs, eyes streaming with tears. This was the reason he had buried the memory. This was the reason he had hidden the treasure of the man he had once loved so wholly, so recklessly, and with so much earnest passion. But love wasn't enough. It hadn't been enough for Jaehyun at the time, and it wasn't enough for him now. Love wasn't enough.
Arms snaked their way around his torso, and lips came down to whisper in his ear as he was pulled to his feet. "It's okay," Johnny told him, rubbing soothing circles on his back as Taeyong's body threatened to crumble underneath him. "It's okay, baby. I got you. I got you."
But Taeyong wasn't listening. He couldn't hear. He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe. He could only wonder. And as the door shut, he wondered it all - he wondered if he had known the real Jaehyun. The Jaehyun with award winning smiles and head-spinning kisses or the blood stained Jaehyun, who nobody really knew anything about.
He wondered if Jaehyun had truly loved him.
