The Years of Us (TaeJoon)

The Call: IX

          Namjoon. 

          That was the only thing Taehyung's mind would focus on as he stumbled, tipsy, through the hallway of his empty home. 

          Drinking had never been a habit or past time for the teenager. In fact, this was the first time he had given into the exciting prospect of alcohol. 

          His friend, Hoseok had invited him over to his house for a small get-together that evening with a few of their classmates while their parents were in Seoul, attending the third wedding of the mother of a girl in Taehyung's sociology class. Naturally, the group used the absence of their guardians to their advantage and used their time to indulge in various activities that would otherwise be banned under adult supervision—one of those activities being physical intimacy. 

          Just fifteen minutes earlier, Taehyung had been sitting on the floor of Hoseok's family room with a bottle of tequila gripped firmly between both hands as his friends around him got lost in each other's lips. Some of them took it as far as to remove items of clothing; shirts, shoes...bottoms. Even moaned and whispered sweet nothings to one another as though none of them cared how alone Taehyung was in the middle of it all. 

          Even if their numbers had allowed it, Taehyung had no desire to be physical with any of them. 

          As he sat on the carpet, legs crisscrossed and eyes staring down at the floor, the sixteen-year-old had been reminded of Kim Namjoon. The boy he had loved through his childhood, though he never said it aloud, out of fear it would reflect badly on the older, even if Taehyung was the only one to say it. He thought of how many times thus far during his teenage years he had wondered what it would be like to have Namjoon with him. Be in school with him, be in the same classes as him...be able to explore new parts of himself that he simply couldn't without him. 

          Taehyung had wondered how the older was doing, his first year out of university. They spoke on the phone and over text every now amd again, but tried to keep their conversations as concise as possible.Otherwise, one of the two maight have slipped up and confessed something to the other and pushed their relationship too far, too early. He wondered if the twenty-three-year-old was moving on yet and trying to find someone that made him forget all the things he'd made Taehyung feel. The younger knew he hadn't dreamt his whole childhood up. Namjoon definitely felt the same way Taehyung did....hadn't he? Had he not felt all the same butterflies in his stomach when their families were dividing up chores over the years and they were chosen to rake leaves together or tidy up the garages in both houses? Was he not also imagining a future where one of those houses was their own?

          Though, Taehyung also wasn't a stranger to questioning his prominence in the life of Kim Namjoon. Of course the younger of the duo had been infatuated...inspired...in love, even. But what if Namjoon only viewed him as a silly child the whole time? It would make sense.

          Because of these thoughts, Taehyung continued to take moderately-sized swigs of the tequila in his grasp before setting the bottle down and grabbing his backpack. The alcohol tasted and smelled like acid, anyhow. He then walked out the front door. He figured since he wasn't completely drunk, he might as well walk the few blocks back to his house, refusing to interrupt any of the makeout sessions that had been happening around him to awkwardly ask for a ride home.

          After making it down the hallway and into his dark bedroom, the natural light from his window had almost completely faded and Taehyung dropped his bag carelessly onto the floor and began wiping at tears as they glided down his cheeks. He'd have liked to have said he didn't know why he was crying, but honestly, there were too many reasons, all of them tracing back to one individual.