Beyond Saturation

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1 January 2017

Kim Taehyung

30 Dec 1980 - 30 Dec 2016

A lovely son,
An adorable brother,
A great father,
and A patient and highly wronged husband. 

Seokjin adamantly refused to carve 'Jeon Taehyung' on the gravestone and everyone understood his sentiment. Everyone including Junha. He remembered how Taehyung had begged Seokjin not to associate him with that name six months ago. 

There was no body under the gravestone. It wasn't found. Not that they expected to find it when it was taken away by the ocean, but Seokjin refused to let it be. He still wanted his brother to have a grave by his name. 

Somewhere for the rest of them to visit whenever they felt like visiting him. 

All of them understood Taehyung's decision. Even Yoongi, Hoseok and Jihyo, who had arrived at Daegu right after finishing Jeongguk and Aera's funeral, understood Taehyung's action. 

But it didn't mean it didn't devastate them. It didn't mean it didn't kill them. 

Even though Taehyung so pointedly asked all of them not to feel guilty, they couldn't help but feel drowned in it. 

If only they had taken some action quicker. If only they had pressed for details instead of letting Taehyung get away with his bullshits just because his lips wobbled and his eyes teared up. 

If only they had known. 

Jimin felt the guiltiest of them all and none of them bothered to tell him it was okay. Because they were furious. They were furious that Taehyung had shared every single detail with him, that he knew the true nature of the abuse that was happening to Taehyung and had still remained silent without contacting an adult. 

They didn't realize in their anger that Jimin had done it because he knew he was the only mental support for Taehyung at the moment. He didn't want Taehyung to feel like Jimin had betrayed him. He didn't want Taehyung to feel like he couldn't share anything with anyone anymore. 

The logic was twisted, even in Jimin's mind, now that he thought about it, but when Taehyung was alive, it felt like the most justifiable logic to Jimin. 

And then there were Taehyung's parents. 

They were the most inconsolable of them all. No amount of words could convince them that Taehyung was in a better place now. A place that he truly wanted to be. That after all these years, he deserved to be just a little selfish. 

Junha remained entirely silent. He didn't know what to feel. The previous night, Namjoon had sat him down and explained to him why Taehyung had done what he had done and that he deserved to be let go after all that he had gone through. That he deserved a better life and that it didn't mean he didn't love Junha. Just that everything else that he had gone through had clouded his love, making him desperate to just leave. 

He wasn't mad at Taehyung for leaving him. Growing up, he had seen how his father was treated more clearly than anyone else. Even though he had missed out on the last six months of his life, one video call from him that horrible night told him that those six months were in no way pleasant for his father. 

When he saw Taehyung in person, he wanted to throw up. He looked like a war survivor from the movies. He couldn't believe his biological father had done this to his real father. 

Yes, he considered Taehyung his real father. Jeongguk and Aera were just his biological parents who he gave no care about. They didn't care about him, so he didn't care about them either. But Taehyung? That man had put his entire blood sweat and tears into bringing him up with as much love as he could shower on him. 

According to Junha, that was what made him his real father. The only person who deserved all of his love and respect. No one else did. Maybe all his four uncles and his grandparents did, but Jeongguk and Aera certainly didn't. 

And even after what Taehyung had done, he only felt bad for him. That he still had to go through so much. That he had lost his voice in the process and had still covered up for his husband diligently. 

He wasn't mad at him. 

Last night, when Seokjin showed him the message that Taehyung had sent for him, he had cried for hours. Those words were so soft, just like his father. He could practically hear his father tell him those words in his velvety deep voice. 

He vowed to himself that he would prove his blood wrong. That he would become a great man like Namjoon, just like his father had asked him to. That he would make people crave to be around him like his father had said. That he would make his father proud, no matter where he was. 

He wiped the couple of tears that rolled from his eyes and took a deep breath. He was going to be strong. He was going to grow up to be a strong and great man. He was going to grow up and be known as 'Taehyung's son' and not 'Jeongguk's son'. 

He was going to keep up his father's name. 

Seokjin, on the other hand, wished Taehyung had held on a little longer. Just a little longer. Maybe he would have stayed alive if he knew Jeongguk was dead. 

But who was he kidding?

He knew Taehyung had become beyond saturated by the time he was rescued from the household. That whether or not Jeongguk was alive would not have affected Taehyung's decision. 

The decision was a result of what he had gone through and not the man himself, after all. 

All in all, though Seokjin felt like his heart was manually torn to pieces, though he felt suffocated by all the guilt that was drowning him, he felt like Taehyung's actions were justifiable. This life had done no justice to his brother, after all. He didn't deserve to live this cruel life. 

Gulping, he poured wine into a small glass and placed the glass in front of Taehyung's gravestone. 

"Go well, Tae. Rest in peace. I hope you be born as my brother even in your next life and live a better life at least then. Goodbye, brother."

With that, everyone raised their own glasses and drank to his memory. 

To his peaceful afterlife. 

To happiness in his next life. 

Unknown to any of them, there was also a man behind the trees, raising his own bottle of soju for the same reason.