TASTE | KTH

brighter

Taehyung is rather notorious for two things. One: being able to eat copious amounts of food and not gain any weight, and two: having a never ending supply of words to say. Right now, though, Taehyung feels so nauseous with anxiety that eating is out of the question, and all of the words are absent on his tongue. The humidity of the bathroom makes him feel claustrophobic, and if he wasn't
already sweating with nerves, he would be from the heat.

The curtain is drawn, and he can't see Yura as she sits in the bath. Letting out a shaky breath, Taehyung sits down on the closed toilet lid, leaning forward with his elbows braces on his knees, long fingers fidgeting nervously. "How you feeling?" He asks finally. He genuinely does want to know, but he's also stalling. He wishes he could go back to earlier and rescind his words, his promise that he would explain this all later.

"Okay." Yura replies, voice small, but echoing with the acoustics of the water and the bathroom. Taehyung can tell that her "okay" is not as okay as she wants him to believe, and another wave of guilt washes over him.

"Are you sure?" Taehyung asks. "Because you were so warm earlier. You were like a fun sized furnace." He attempts to make humor out of the situation, and Yura laughs softly. He lets himself relax a little bit—she's all right enough to laugh. That's a good sign, right?

"Thanks, I know I'm pretty hot." Yura rasps out sarcastically, and Taehyung chuckles, deep voice filling the bathroom before it falls quiet again. "I'm scared, Tae." She speaks up again, and Taehyung is glad she can't see the way he visibly flinched through the curtain. "It hurt so badly. My skin felt like it was on fire, I felt like my blood was boiling me from the inside out." She says, and from the tightness in her voice, Taehyung can tell she's crying. "And when you touched me, it was was worse. I've got burn marks on my arm Tae. They're red and blistering."

"Oh, God." He chokes out softly, feeling awful. All he had wanted to do was comfort her, alleviate her pain, but all he had done was make it worse.

"What's going on, Tae?" Yura asks. "You seem like you're hiding something." She says honestly, and Taehyung sighs. The truth has to come out now. The month and a half of Taehyung knowing this and keeping it to himself catches up to him now, and he feels so incredibly unprepared. He knows his discomfort doesn't matter anymore, though—Yura deserves to know. It doesn't make doing this any more pleasant. He can't stop thinking about the last time Yura found out he kept something from her—she didn't talk to him for a week and had looked at him like he was a total stranger in her eyes.

"Remember when I told you I had found my soulmate? Right after you got hurt?" Taehyung asks, trying to keep his voice from wavering. Yura pauses briefly.

"Oh, my gosh. Yes, I—I completely forgot! Oh, Taehyung, I'm sorry, I was all doped up on pain meds and—wait, we kissed...and you have a soulmate..." She rambles but Taehyung stops her.

"No, it's not like that." He quickly explains, biting the inside of his cheek, trying to figure out how to word this.

"Then, what's it like?" Yura asks, obviously confused. Taehyung takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, bracing himself for the words that follow.

"Yura...my soulmate is you." He says simply. Yura takes another pause, and Taehyung has never hated the shower curtain more. He wishes he could see her face, wishes he could know what she's feeling.

"Tae, you know that's not true." Yura says gently, as if coaxing him down from a ledge, or talking to a child. "As awful as he is, Wonho is my soulmate."