"don't say you love me like that; like you're saying goodbye."
///
in which yoongi and taehyung are ex-lovers who meet once again in tokyo, spending one last night together, learning how to both love and let go.
///
a taegi short story; @springbts...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
__________________________
And so it goes on for a bit, this dance of wanting but not being able to have.
Taehyung's face is full of exquisite pain saying we can't we can't we can't, and Yoongi is brushing his lips against Taehyung's, lips that now taste of his own salty tears pleading stay stay stay, and they both know that they want the other just as much, it's just that Taehyung doesn't love Yoongi enough for him to be able to stay again, not after his hurt that he'd been through, not after the sunken eyes and loud fights and a smile that no longer holds any happiness.
Because Taehyung has always been there for Yoongi, with a love so unconditional Yoongi has taken it for granted.
So one night, five years ago, on a balmy day near the end of July, Taehyung reaches his breaking point.
Things had slowly been tense ever since Yoongi's looming graduation. The pressure's piling on him, his professors were expecting high achievements and his fellow students are eyeing him with envy and reluctant praise. Reviews start in a month, where Yoongi had to arrange his own songs, build his own chords, and somehow effortlessly perform them in front of a judging panel, all while being aware that this event would be his deciding factor of success or failure. So he'd been snappy and anxious, and it had spilled over in the months leading to their break-up: dozens of missed phone calls, cancelled dinner plans, disgruntled sorry I'm tired todays.
On top of that, Yoongi's stress had eaten him inside out, and he'd suffered through intense anxiety attacks and fleeting feverish bugs that would wake Taehyung up at night because it hurts too much for Yoongi to breathe. Taehyung would gather him close and talk him through it until it ends, until Yoongi drifts back off to sleep again. He'd never known though, of how Taehyung would sometimes not be able to go back to bed after helping him – how much Taehyung had given up just so Yoongi would rest well at night.
But even when Yoongi could see the signs, the bright red neon lights that flash to warn, he didn't act on them. Like Taehyung's replies growing shorter and shorter until one night he doesn'tspeak at all. Or Taehyung's frequent visits to Yoongi's studio slowly becoming an occasional thing instead, a once-in-a-while, each visit often separated from the next by weeks on end. Or how Taehyung stopped suggesting ideas for date nights, stopped asking Yoongi about his day, stopped tugging Yoongi closer to kiss him hello when they meet and goodbye when they part ways.
Stopped trying, until one day Yoongi comes home late after an extremely draining practice session for his upcoming revision and he found Taehyung sitting on their sofa, body rigid and eyes hollow, looking like a shadow of his former bright self.
Yoongi had breathed in, then, and something in him seems to drop to the very bottom of his toes, something like dread wrapped up in desperation, and he'd sensed that he can't avoid the conversation any longer, that he can't just push away in hopes that it was maybe just his imagination or his tendency to exaggerate again. He'd gulped before asking, in a tentative voice, hands pausing in the act of slipping off his shoes, if Taehyung is okay.
