Work Text:
Taehyung was staring at the hot cocoa in the cup in front of him with furrowed brows.
"Didn't wanna do it on a call", Yoongi murmured and cleared his throat.
How considerate of him, Taehyung thought but he understood. He understood why Yoongi wanted to talk about it in person just as much as he understood why they had to have that talk in the first place.
He understood that Yoongi and he had been connected to one another in an intimate and intense, impulsive, way that he had never felt with anyone else before. It had been intense enough for him to long it despite the love and security Jeongguk had given him. Yoongi knew and he had felt it, too. But there was nothing to feel apart from it.
Yoongi and he did try. They really did try to make it work. Namjoon and Seokjin had distanced themselves from Taehyung and Jimin ended up in a psychiatric ward after a huge fight with Yoongi that Taehyung barely knew anything about because Yoongi didn't like talking about Jimin. Or feelings at all, for that matter. He liked being to himself and he liked Taehyung but he liked him best when his mouth was stuffed with his cock or his face pressed into sheets.
Taehyung knew that and yet both of them had thought it was more than that. They had thought they liked each other more than the intimacy they shared. So they did things that boyfriends would do and they would fight and kiss and go on dates but it never felt complete without that certain edge of Yoongi balls deep inside Taehyung. It was something Taehyung noticed only two weeks after Jeongguk had moved out - he didn't know where he was staying now because no one would talk to him anymore - and he had started spending more time with Yoongi.
Yoongi liked silence and Taehyung had never minded the silence with Jeongguk but he didn't like it with Yoongi. Maybe it was because of what their relationship was based off. Infidelity and lies. One, two broken hearts. More lies. They had never been genuine. Until now.
"I understand", Taehyung said.
He swallowed thickly. It hurt. Because after Jeongguk had left him, he had craved Yoongi more than ever and nothing he ever did was enough to fill him up the way Jeongguk had done it. He had wanted to be with Yoongi and swallow him whole so badly because he hadn't been on his own for longer than he could remember. And now he was telling him that he could no longer occupy the void.
Taehyung knew why. He did. He really did. He had realized it himself, had sighed and cried because what Yoongi gave wasn't enough to make him happy, to make him feel complete. Yet it was all Yoongi was able to give and he hated that it wasn't what he wanted and needed. And it was all Taehyung would ever get again.
It was something that he repeated to himself over and over again when he would lay on his own after Yoongi had left, leaving him open and vulnerable. That was all and the best he would ever get. He hadn't been deserving of Jeongguk so that was what he was left with. It wasn't enough and he hated the way Yoongi could make him feel so unwanted, now that there wasn't Jeongguk anymore to love and cherish him. As though the appreciation Yoongi made Taehyung feel by fucking and holding him afterwards sometimes had only been sufficient because there had still been Jeongguk, always holding him and kissing his forehead, if they fucked or not.
He missed having his forehead kissed and knowing that, in the end, he wouldn't feel cold at night. He wanted it back. So so bad. And because he couldn't have it back, he held onto all that he had left. Even if it meant almost freezing to death and his forehead staying unkissed. Who would he be, what would he do, if that last bit was gone? If he was to be on his own? Who did he have left besides Yoongi?
"It's just weird", Yoongi voiced with a light huff.
Taehyung didn't have to glance up to know that he wasn't looking at him. It hurt. Knowing that Yoongi could ruin his life and still not look him in the eye. Whereas Taehyung didn't have the strength to do it either.
"What is?"
Taehyung actually didn't expect an answer and Yoongi didn't give him one. He wasn't surprised, it still disappointed him.
"So?", he pressed Yoongi with a raised eyebrow, his gaze lingering on his folded hands until he dared to look at his face.
It felt crazy to Taehyung how the first time he had met Yoongi, he had instantly felt like he wanted to be close to him. To touch and feel his hands all over himself and breathe in his scent, his atmosphere, while falling apart right in front of him. He had never wanted to skin and bare himself in front of someone else this badly before. So here he was, naked and emptied of all his insides in front of someone who didn't know how to stuff them back inside Taehyung's empty hull. Here he was, left with nothing because he had skinned himself without giving it any thought and he wanted to stay bare as long as it made Yoongi stay.
Funnily, all the eagerness Taehyung put into it wasn't enough to convince Yoongi. Taehyung could paint his loose skin golden and construct grotesque art made out of his worthless organs and Yoongi would still be nothing more than a temporary fullness ending with freezing cold.
It wasn't as though Taehyung truly was in love with Yoongi - although he liked to say he was. It made him feel less stupid. Only lust. He had fallen, irreversibly and so incredibly deeply in lust with Yoongi that even now, that Yoongi was telling him that their constant fighting and fucking wasn't enough to make a relationship out of it, all Taehyung could think about how he was supposed to be around Yoongi without throwing himself at him.
And if Yoongi stopped being around him, whom would he give his skin to?
"I came to end it-", Yoongi shrugged (his tone was indefinable), "-and not to talk about what's going wrong because whenever I do, you snap."
Taehyung snorted and grabbed the spoon of his cocoa to stir it while screwing up his eyes at Yoongi.
"Whenever I ask you what's wrong, you can't open your mouth. And when I complain that you can't fucking spell it out, you fault me!", Taehyung whisper-hissed because they were still in public and he didn't want the other guests of the café to get involved.
"'You always snap'", he mimicked Yoongi's voice, "Well, maybe I do because you never fucking tell me what I can do to make it better! Even now you don't even want us to talk about the reasons."
Taehyung had lifted his gaze from his cocoa and Yoongi's hands completely to stare him in his averted eyes. Then the older male locked their gazes. Taehyung wasn't able to read his expression. He never had been able to. After all those months of seeing him cum and kissing his face and his chest, he still wasn't able to read any of him. It made Taehyung angry that he had wanted Yoongi so bad only for Yoongi to not give him anything. As though he had paid an eBay auctioneer only for that auctioneer to disappear with all the money he had invested in something he ended up never receiving.
"You're right. I don't want to talk about it."
That was how it always went. Yoongi said that something bothered him. Taehyung told him that it bothered him how he never actually spelt out loud what bothered him and Yoongi shut him up, claiming he didn't even want to address it.
Taehyung tightened his grip on the small spoon and he had to pull himself together not to throw it into Yoongi's face. His head felt hot and all he could think about was how sick he was of this. He was so sick of investing and giving and trying to make it work and Yoongi fucking him raw and then leaving like he had done it even before Jeongguk had found out.
"I fucking lost everything because of you and you dare to not even give a fuck about making it work?"
Taehyung's voice had started to increase in volume and Yoongi hissed at him to be quieter.
"I didn't force you to cheat on your boyfriend there."
The funny thing about fighting with Yoongi was that he rarely attacked him. There rarely was anything that Taehyung could use to truly hate and snap at him. He didn't say that it had been Taehyung throwing himself at him like a bitch in heat, he didn't put the blame on the younger one. He said none of the things Taehyung wanted him to say so that he could scream at him and cut him off like he should have the moment he realized he wanted to be railed by him.
It never stopped him from snapping anyway, however.
Taehyung let out a burst of humourless laughter and dug his fingers into the edge of the table separating them instead of penetrating the spoon any longer as he yelled: "You knew I had a boyfriend!", his gaze shifted and he reminded himself to quiet down just a tad although he wanted to scream at Yoongi until his throat was sore, "You could have stopped me. But you are no better than me! And you know it but you are too self-righteous to see your fault in this!"
He ended his sentence with a slammed fist to the wooden table. The porcelain of their drinks shook and clinked.
Then Yoongi got up. Taehyung hadn't even noticed how he had pulled out a few bills to put them on the table when he was snapping at him as he had hardly been able to even see his face clearly.
Even now he was having trouble focussing. His gaze seemed to blur out every now and then and he blinked furiously, his breath quickening. He watched Yoongi getting up and shoving his wallet back into his jeans pocket. It was a pair of black ripped jeans and Taehyung had hooked his fingers into the holes a lot of times before when sliding his hands across his clothed thighs.
"Don't you fucking leave me now", Taehyung huffed mindlessly and abruptly stood up as well.
"You didn't even try!"
He stumbled around the table to get to Yoongi but he had already shaken his head and turned around.
Taehyung went after him and the second he stepped out of the café, he raised his voice and screamed. He probably insulted him. Probably told him that it was all his and Jimin's fault and that he should go and fuck his anorexic ass because they both were made for each other. With how they both had fucked him over, how everything could have been fine if they both hadn't done him like that. That it probably had been Yoongi's intention to leave him for his former best friend anyway. That he could fuck off and that he didn't need him. He didn't need any of them.
He kept on screaming through a confused crowd of people even when Yoongi put on a set of headphones and disappeared in between.
It reminded him of that one evening when everything went down. Back then he had been beyond tipsy and he had been so empty and lost that he could barely recall his own words. Now he wasn't tipsy but he felt drunk. He felt dizzy, as though he could faint any second, as though none of this was real.
Like in trance he grabbed his phone and called Yoongi while running back and forth on the pavement. He called him over and over again until the mailbox greeted him instantly and he texted him swear words and middle fingers until his profile picture turned blank.
The second he stepped into his flat, he screamed at his phone and slammed his fists onto the wardrobe to the point where his knuckles felt numb and swollen. He had screamed that evening when Jeongguk didn't come home to him anymore, too. But he still had had Yoongi. Now he had left him as well.
He couldn't bear the thought to be left with no one but himself, to have been abandoned by all of them. How dared they? How dared they to leave him when none of this had been his fault only? He hated them. He hated them so so much. He didn't need them. They abandoned him and he hated them for it and he would show them that he didn't need them. They were worthless anyway.
That's what he cried to himself as he scuffed through his flat and kicked and hit everything he saw. He screamed his heart out until he choked on a sob. Then he cried and curled up on the floor. His fists kept meeting the floor. He wasn't even sure if he was crying because of the pain in his chest or his swollen hands anymore. He wasn't even sure if he was able to feel any pain at all. He wasn't sure of anything any longer. Nothing was of any significance anymore.
Taehyung had missed Jeongguk a lot and when he had come to pick up his belongings, Taehyung had cried as he had never cried before. The days that followed Yoongi's abandonment made all of it come back. No, not come back. Roll over him, suffocate and pull him underwater like a riptide until he was choking and hitting around himself. As though it would make him float back on top so that he could breathe because down there he couldn't.
Yoongi had made him feel as though despite losing Jeongguk, he still had someone desiring and giving him something. It wasn't what Jeongguk had given him but it was better than to be without anything at all. He was left with nothing now. There wasn't even anyone he could go to, he could talk to and beg for help, for something.
At some point, he texted Seokjin. He told Taehyung was busy and Taehyung said he was all alone and that he needed someone. Maybe it had been calculating of Taehyung to approach Seokjin of all people. He was the last one to leave a friend in need hanging, after all. But it worked and that was all Taehyung cared about.
Seokjin agreed to talk to him when going to the laundrette. Their laundry machine had given up on them and the shipment of their new one had been delayed. Taehyung didn't care where they would meet or for how long as long as Seokjin would just talk to him.
He had kept his knuckles in bandages for the past few days but taken them off because he didn't want Seokjin to ask what happened. The bruises were yellow by now and could be kept hidden underneath the sleeves of a hoodie.
When Seokjin arrived at the laundrette, he was nodding in Taehyung's direction as a greeting and let the younger one follow him inside. Taehyung's small "Hello" was swallowed by the sounds of the laundry machines inside the big store.
Seokjin chose one of the larger machines and started stuffing the contains of the sizeable bag he had brought into the barrel. Taehyung stared at the clothes and almost hiccuped when he recognized some of Jeongguk's belongings. One of his hoodies that he had bought him on one of their trips to an amusement park. He had a matching one.
"Is he staying at your place?", he mindlessly asked in a breathless voice.
There was that knot in his throat. That Seokjin and Namjoon got to see his love every day while he had to live all by himself without him. But if Seokjin was putting the shared hoodie into the laundry, it meant Jeongguk had been wearing it. It meant Jeongguk was holding onto Taehyung. He still loved him. He had to.
Seokjin didn't look him in the face when he pushed the door shut and dryly replied: "If talking about him is all you came for, don't bother staying."
Taehyung furrowed his brows and dug his nails into the fabric of his sweater.
"I know I fucked up", he started involuntarily whining but Seokjin didn't even consider letting him speak.
"Do you?", Seokjin huffed, "Because you lied to him- no, to all of us. You deceived us for your own sake. And from what we heard from Yoongi, you still don't acknowledge how badly you fucked up."
Seokjin usually didn't swear so hearing him this upset and mindless was scary.
The younger man frowned and shook his head no: "No, I realized! I don't know what Yoongi told you but-"
Seokjin had pushed a few coins into the slot and the laundry machine was now roaring and filling with water. He swiftly turned around and - more or less gently - slammed the compressed bag onto a bench.
Then he hissed, interrupted Jeongguk: "I have known you since middle school. And yet, after all those months of ruining all of what we had, you still have the audacity to lie to me."
"I love you, Taehyung. And I cherished our friendship so much. But what you have done to all of us but especially Jeongguk can't be forgiven. I don't know what you came for but if it's insisting on your innocence, I don't care."
"I fucked up but it really isn't all-"
The 'on me' was drowned by Seokjin screwing up his eyes sadly and yet angrily and sighing: "I said, I don't care. I truly wanted to listen to you but whenever I look into your face, all I see is a liar. And I wouldn't even care as much if you at least admitted that you are lying but you don't. All you're trying to do is blame everyone around you for cheating on Jeongguk."
He didn't even let Taehyung part his lips before relentlessly continuing: "Did Yoongi fuck up? Yes, he did. How can one accept someone's advances, knowing they are taken? I wonder how he can sleep at night. But I also wonder how you can live with yourself. To Jeongguk, you were the love of his life and you threw away everything you built up for what? Tell me, Taehyung, what for? Because it obviously didn't work out. And if you had had a little more self-control or at least the strength to be honest after the first time it happened, things would be looking much - very much - differently now."
"The only thing Jimin did wrong was to wait and expose your infidelity towards Jeongguk in front of everyone else. Hearing it from your best friend during a drinking game after months of lying to Jeongguk's face. Do you even care about what you put him through? Or do you only care about what you have lost? Is that why you texted me? Because you couldn't bear being alone although you put this all on yourself?"
Taehyung had been standing there, quiet and small, all along while Seokjin's words fell down on him like poisonous rain. He didn't dare to look up, move or interrupt because he was scared. And ashamed. He truly was ashamed.
'Or do you only care about what you have lost?' Those words echoed inside his mind and each time he thought about it, his heart sank further and with his heart his ability to keep his eyes open. He ended up squeezing them shut. Following that motion, a tear dropped. Another one fell from his closed lids and a moment later, he was crying.
Taehyung wasn't sure why exactly he was crying. Maybe because he had called himself selfish before but he had never realized how selfish he actually was. He had never wanted to lose Jeongguk but not because of his love for Jeongguk but because he couldn't bear being without him. He had wanted and wanted, had wanted so much and it all. And then he hurt Jeongguk and hurt him even more, still claiming he loved him when all he did was staying with him through his toxicity because he couldn't put Jeongguk over himself.
If he had really loved Jeongguk, he would have been honest. He would have freed Jeongguk from his own misery and lies before they became his. He pitied himself like he had done it all along with the difference that he also hated himself. He hated what he had been capable of doing to someone he insisted on loving.
The hatred made his heart ache even more than hearing the truth did and he sobbed quietly while desperately trying to wipe away his tears. He didn't want to prove Seokjin right that he only mourned what he had lost, that he made himself out to be the victim of Yoongi's and Jimin's combined exposure. But he couldn't help himself.
Seokjin looked at him with an indefinable expression. He didn't say anything for a minute or two until he cleared his throat.
"Tell me, why are you crying? This is the misery you chose, Taehyung."
"I know!", Taehyung exclaimed quickly against his sleeve and hiccupped.
"I know this is my fault! I don't- fucking know why I wanted Yoongi so bad because Jeongguk was fucking everything to me and no one will ever treat me as well as he did. I don't even deserve it because he was just- everything- I don't-"
Taehyung swore and babbled and shook his head uncontrollably and sobbed in between his words.
"I know I don't even have the fucking right to cry. I deserve feeling miserable and I deserve being alone because I made everyone leave! I gave everyone so many fucking reasons to hate me and never want to be with me ever again! I want- everything to be like it used to be because it was perfect that way but I fucked it up and it would never be the same way again and I wouldn't deserve it either. I know, I know, I know!"
Taehyung's whole body was shaking with the realization of his faults and he couldn't stop rubbing his face with his bruised hands while crying breathlessly.
Seokjin watched him babble and cry until he carefully guided him out of the laundrette by a hand on his back that he wrapped around him once they were outside. The older male was hurt and disappointed. But he was no monster. He still loved Taehyung despite his anger about his mistakes.
He hushed Taehyung softly as he kept on talking to himself and crying. He had said everything he had wanted to say and pushing him further would only be mean. Seokjin believed Taehyung that he was angry at himself and he believed him that he knew about his mistakes despite having made them over and over again. He couldn't understand him and he didn't support what he did. No way he would ever forget about it. Seokjin didn't think there was anything that could excuse or make up for those mistakes. But maybe with time, Taehyung and he could become friends again. He didn't know if it would remind him of Jeongguk too much, however.
"I miss him so much. He probably hates me and he will never forgive me. I hope he never forgives me. But I wanna have him back... I wanna have Jeonggukkie..."
Taehyung repeated those words a few times before he sobbed again and that's how they stood there for a while until Taehyung's crying subsided and Seokjin's rubbing and soothing hand on his back came to a halt. Then they went back inside and Taehyung whispered about all the things he had blamed Jimin for and all the things he had put on Yoongi. That he felt so crazily attracted to Yoongi and that when it first happened, he fell asleep in Jeongguk's clothes because he felt so far away from him. That he only increased the distance by meeting Yoongi more often, getting more intimate, but that he didn't even think about him when he was with Jeongguk because he made him feel so complete. How sick his thoughts had been with hatred and how torn he had been all along but how he had always justified his actions. He hadn't wanted to be wrong, he hadn't wanted to stop. All of this had been on him.
He had lost sight and although he was the one to blame for everything that had happened, he had never had someone to talk to, to tell him how wrong he was - he hadn't wanted to hear it. If he had, he would have admitted it to any of his friends. But he had known what they would have said. He had been like a drug addict who hid his addiction, knowing that once anyone would see, they would show him what he was doing to himself and everyone around him, they would make him stop and then he would have to be without his drug.
Taehyung came up with those metaphors shakily and quietly and full of shame and he fumbled with his aching hands while Seokjin was playing sudoku, humming. He stared at the black numbers that Seokjin's pen hovered over and blinked away some of his tears.
Seokjin didn't ask any further questions. He didn't need to. Taehyung said everything he felt the need to let out and by the time the laundry machine was done and the clothes were put into the dryer, he had recalled what had happened with Yoongi.
"I never was in love with him", Taehyung muttered and huffed.
"You weren't", Seokjin hummed.
"Jeongguk will never forgive me. I hurt him for- nothing."
Seokjin made an elusive sound. Taehyung sniffed.
"I don't want to live without him."
"That is no longer your decision."
Taehyung knew that Seokjin was right. He had hurt Jeongguk. He had pushed him away. He had made the decision to ruin their relationship. If Jeongguk actually were to want any of it back, it was on him. Taehyung had no right to interfere anymore.
He nodded and closed his eyes.
"I just- miss him."
"I know."
They continued to take turns in staring at the dryer and the sudoku until the laundry was done and Seokjin pushed them back into his bag. Taehyung helped him so that he could get a hold of Jeongguk's hoodie for a moment. His chest felt tight and he had to swallow thickly after handing it his friend again. He watched it disappear in the depths in between all those other pieces of clothing. He wished he could have held onto it a bit longer but he reminded himself that it was on him. So he averted his eyes.
Taehyung thanked Seokjin genuinely and they said their goodbyes.
Two weeks later he received a text.
"Hey Taehyung.
I want to talk if you are up for it.
- Jeongguk"