TASTE | KTH

strings

Taehyung knows what it feels like to be helpless. He's familiar with the gut-wrenching feeling that comes with the complete and utter lack of control over the worst situations. The churning insides and chilled blood and ringing in his ears aren't new to him. He's been here before—when his soulmate was beaten to a pulp, he felt this. Every time the metallic, bitter taste of blood washed over his tastebuds, he felt this.

The difference between those times and now is that he didn't know what he knows now. He didn't know Yura was his soulmate. He didn't know where she lived, or who was hurting her, or that she was the one hurting at all. All of those times that he had been struck with this debilitating sense of anxiety and powerlessness, he truly had been powerless. He couldn't have done anything to help his soulmate because he didn't have that information. He simply was stuck in the dark.

But now, things are different. Now, he can help. Now, he's here with Yura, and he has the ability to talk sense into her. He can convince her to stop. He can persuade her to change her mind.

Except, while he has the propensity to do all of those things, since he's with Yura and knows her and loves her—Taehyung can't do those things. He can't, because as much as Yura is smart and strong and beautiful, she is hard headed and stubborn.

"Yura, please. You don't need to do this." Taehyung pleads, aching to touch her. He wants to grab her hands and refuse to release them. He wants to communicate through the press of his chapped and freezing lips to her forehead that everything will be okay if she doesn't go through with the ritual. He wants to hold her in his arms and remind her that this, being together, is what they've been fighting for all along, and if she does this, being together is jeopardized. But all the things he wants to say through touch are quite literally out of reach, as Yura makes sure to stand with a few feet between them, and backs up if he approaches.

Seokjin stands a distance away, filling a metal tub with ice to accompany the water that already lies within. They took the elevator up to the top floor of the parking garage for the building. It's empty and desolate and much, much too quiet. Night has fallen, and full, gray storm clouds stifle the light from the stars. Seokjin's lips are set into a thin line of determination, but his eyes show that he's far away. He's reliving something that Taehyung hopes he'll never have to go through. The chance that he might just have to experience losing his soulmate, too, only fuels his efforts to make her listen.

"You heard Seokjin. We can be together like this. People survive like this." Taehyung persists when Yura doesn't answer, doesn't meet his eyes.

"Surviving is different than truly living, Taehyung." Yura sighs, and there's a bittersweet acceptance in her tone, in the somber knit of her eyebrows, in her slightly watery eyes. She takes a few hesitant steps towards him, and Taehyung watches as she brings her hand up to touch his cheek, but she stops as soon as she remembers she can't. She's looking at him now, her eyes boring into his own. Taehyung tries to memorize them, tries to engrave her irises into the matter of his brain.

"Nothing I can say will convince you, will it?" Taehyung whispers, his voice suddenly too weak. Tears slip down his cheeks, though he had desperately tried to hold them back. Yura offers him a semblance of a smile, the cold wind rippling through her clothes and her raven hair.

"No. Tae, I...I've settled. I've settled with what life has handed to me for a very long time. I've sucked it up and accepted shitty parents, a boyfriend who didn't really love me, beating after beating after beating. All this because I've conditioned myself to believe that it's what I deserve. I taught myself I didn't deserve to be happy, because...well, I thought that if I allowed myself to want more from life, then I would just be disappointed in the long run." Yura explains, and Taehyung's heart physically aches.