Stories || KSJ;JJK;KTH

To be loved (by you) | Taejin pt 2

I strongly advice you to stream 'tonight' by Jin while reading this.

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After becoming twenty and Taehyung seventeen, Seokjin realized the younger was getting closer and closer to the age of eighteen. There was only a year left, a year filled with less time together because Taehyung focused throughoutly on his scholarship for the College of Arts, a building on the other side of South Korea.

Seokjin was aware of it, Taehyung talked about nothing else ever since he actually got the opportunity to accomplish his dreams as long as his grades were optimal.

Despite the curling of his stomach whenever he thought of it, Seokjin forced himself to smile - to only think of Taehyung and how happy he would be to get the career he had always wanted - to encourage him to follow his destined path.

And Seokjin started to begin he wasn't meant to be a part of it, not when his place was in his hometown, while Taehyungs was to escape it. Their lives didn't seem to be compatible, and it was okay, not every friendship could last.

It just sucked that it had to be Taehyung he needed to let go off, it would have hurt less if it was Jimin, maybe Jungkook too, but Taehyung was the hardest out of them three. Don't get him wrong, Seokjin would've missed them and cry on the day of the goodbye, but with Taehyung, a part of himself would be teared away from Seokjin. It was always different when it came to Taehyung.

Taehyung understood him more than Seokjin understood himself. He knew which advice to give, when to remain silent, when it was appropriate to comfort with touches and when Seokjin would flinch away from them. Taehyung knew it all, and for someone to learn all those small things about Seokjin again would probably take a whole lifetime. Time, Seokjin didn't have enough patience for.

He was afraid of mentioning the topic in front of Taehyung, of what he might reply nonchalantly. Seokjin knew the younger would never hurt him internationally, but people sometimes didn't know the power of casual statements. Statements like

"You're making this about yourself."

Or - "I didn't know you were that obsessed with me."

Or the worst statement he could say - "I'll come back someday, I promise."

Because the last one will result in Seokjin actually waiting, of a lifetime filled with hope and denying the possibility Taehyung wouldn't return even after fifty years. Because he said it, because he promised it, because Seokjin would have believed everything he said out of desperation to not lose him.

Seokjin found out quickly he couldn't escape the fact Taehyung had to leave someday, and he wished for time to still or slow down for a bit. He wished for Taehyung to spend more time in his house, maybe stay - for the first time ever - a whole night, allowing Seokjin to know what it would've felt like to awake next to him.

Seokjin wasn't creepy, he hoped he wasn't. He didn't mean it in a romantic manner, he was only afraid of regretting not making more memories with the younger - of looking back and thinking Taehyung deserved more friendship activities besides painting and talking. Seokjin figured he wasn't a good friend for the younger, neither for Jimin nor Jungkook. Maybe he wasn't a good person at all.

"Aren't you scared to live in a big city all by yourself?" Jungkook asked after Jimin brought the topic up, watching Taehyung intently. "And it's so far away from here, I would definitely be scared."

They were sitting in small cafe, slurping on their milkshakes after school and classes. Taehyung was halfway through the last year of highschool, and Seokjin felt like a month was passing in a simple blink, much too fast, far too less time to prepare himself for Taehyungs absence.