Chapter 7

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 “Here…” Jimin whispered, tearing some chicken from the bone and holding it up to the younger’s lips. Tae smiled listlessly, curled on his side on the sofa. He still felt a little weak. Not so much that he couldn’t hold his own like before, but enough that his limbs were still noodely and loose. He opened his mouth and received the chicken.

​

“Thank you.” He murmured around a mouthful, nuzzling into the cushions.  Jimin hummed in response, swiping a fleck of chili from the corner of Tae’s lip. For some reason his thumb lingered there. Tae’s lips curved up, eyes warm but, Jimin pulled away, ducking his head. “Jimin-ah,” he whispered. “Why do you do that? That felt so nice, why did you stop?”

Jimin sighed, shaky. “I have no idea, I just…”

​

Tae leaned up on his elbow, hair sweeping to the side as he went. “You shouldn’t hide your emotions away like that. You spend so much of your life helping people. There’s nothing wrong with having something for yourself.”

​

Jimin’s lip jutted, Tae couldn’t help but think of how adorable he looked. He also couldn’t help but think of Suga upstairs, how strong his feelings were for the medium when they were layered under the elder’s.

 

“It’s not that…” Jimin whispered. “I know it’s okay, I just…if-if I were to kiss you right now. It would be like admitting it.”

 

For some reason, the way his voice hitched at the end of his sentence brought tears to Tae’s eyes. “Admitting what?” he whispered. In both of their states, so raw, so vulnerable, Tae probably shouldn’t have slid his fingers through Jimin’s hair.  But he did. And it made the elder shudder.

​

“He- “Jimin sucked in a labored breath. “It’s-it’s like admitting that he’s gone… that he’s really gone.”

​

It was precisely two seconds after that, that Jimin burst into a flood of bone shaking, heart-breaking tears. Tae used all his strength to pull himself onto the floor beside Jimin, pull the elder into his chest. He’d never seen another person cry like that. God…the most soul-destroying sounds being torn from Jimin’s throat, like he was in pain… physical pain. Like he could barely withstand the storm anymore and it was tearing him apart piece by broken piece. In the end Tae cried too, for someone he didn’t even know. But whoever it was must have been the literal incarnation of god, to make such an angel weep like that.

 

“God, I miss him. I m-miss him so fucking much…”

​

It came slowly, but eventually the elder settled in a weak puddle in Tae’s arms. For a while there was nothing but breathing, and the faint sound of their music in the background. Tae’s hand covered the one that clung to his shirt.

​

“Do you dance, Jiminie?”

​

The elder lifted his tear stained face, it shined like caramel in the candle light. “Huh?”

 

“Do you dance?” Tae murmured, using his hoodie sleeve to dry Jimin’s eyes.

​

“Yeah…I-it used to be my job…until I lost my muse so...”

​

Tae nodded, ever gentle. “Would you like to dance? Now? With-with me.”

​

There was a beat of uncertainty, but Jimin nodded and let Tae pull him to his feet. At first it was nothing but Tae pulling him into his warmth and the slight sway of their bodies, as their fingers entwined. But then Tae was spinning the elder, hoping to catch him by surprise…snap him out of his sadness. But Jimin was a dancer and spinning like that came naturally, he spun out in a perfect coil and landed with his toes pointed, shoulders pushed right back. He was a swan. Graceful like a swan.

​

“Yah…” Tae was in awe. “So pretty…”

​

Jimin blushed a dusky pink, high over his cheeks and pulled Tae back in by his wrist, circling round him, pressing his back against his chest, pulling Tae’s arms around his waist and swaying them to the rhythm. The younger’s breath caught in his throat as Jimin tilted his head back against his shoulder, bow of his lips brushing his ear. “Tae-ah…”

​

“Y-yeah?”

 

“Spin me out…and pull me back.”

 

Tae swallowed and complied tugging the smaller into a pirouette, before pulling him back against his frame. So close that their noses brushed. For the second time, Jimin pressed their foreheads together and Tae smiled, adoring. Jimin didn’t think he deserved such a reaction.

​

“Whoever he was…” Tae whispered. “He was so so lucky. It sounds strange but…if one day someone would cry for me like you did or love me that much. Shit Jiminie, I’d be the luckiest man in the world.”

​

A tear trickled, far too beautiful down Jimin’s cheek. “Tae…”

​

“If I kiss you, you’re not technically acknowledging anything, right? If I kiss you, it’s not the same as if you kissed me.”

 

“I suppose…”

 

“I want to kiss you. Please?”

 

Jimin nodded and Tae’s hand cupped his cheek, thumb caressing his delicate cheekbone. Jimin closed his eyes, parted his lips and received Tae’s kiss with a whine. Many seconds passed, it was slow, sweet, sensual. But the passion that had been bubbling ever since their eyes first met, it was building, thundering through their veins. The kisses became more frantic, hands in hair, Jimin’s perfect whimpers more melodic than any tune they could have conjured on Spotify.

​

 

Heat. It was a heat that Jimin hadn’t felt since…

 

The elder pulled back, with an almost comical lip smack. Panting, their chests heaving. “S-sorry. Just…can we stop here. I’m so sorry, I just-”

 

“It’s okay.” Tae told him, dazed but ever-patient with the medium. “It’s okay…thank you. Thank you f-for letting me. Thank you so much.”

 

Jimin shook his head, pressing his forehead into his collarbone. “No…thank you. Thank you…Taehyungie…”

 

/

Outside the door, a figure was hunched in the shadows, struggling with all he had left to push his pain aside, let them have this moment.

 

Suga had never felt like such a burden in his life. When he thought how happy they could be if they didn’t have him in their midst. Always a dark cloud and no silver lining. It’s how he always felt, in death…in his life.

The man with the hollow chest gritted his teeth, pushed himself to his feet and swept from one door to the next, passing through the front one and into the garden. He eyed that tiny wooden gate, like he was Eve and that the apple. He bobbed closer, down the path, no crunch under his feet, no shadow by the light of the moon. He came to his barrier, his hope steadily draining, like the sand inside an hourglass. Just waiting to run out.

 

He eyed the outside world curiously. Would it really be so bad? To be scattered over that field, forever lost? What was the alternative? Pain for him? Pain for them. Those two young, sweet, gorgeous humans…they never asked for this.

 

Suga raised his palm, pushed it steadily over the line. Fuck, did it hurt. Like a million lightning bolts through his being, shaking him like dice in a cup. But he pushed, his forearm, his elbow, bit by bit he shattered for them.

 

He was so close, so close to it, but:

 

“Hyung!” Suga snapped his arm back. Shit, shit, shit. He didn’t know when he ended up on the floor. All he knew was Tae was a blur above him.

 

Lovely, kind Tae, who took him in with open arms and had risked himself to give him one perfect moment.

 

Then Jimin beside him, an angel. The last true angel…

​

/

He allowed the other two to follow him to the attic that night, arms stuffed with pillows and blankets. Tae insisted on staying with him, to assure the man with the hollow chest wouldn’t disappear into the night. Suga told him via the board, that he was being ridiculous. That it was all a misunderstanding. But when Jimin was told what had happened, he was just as insistent. More so. And

Suga knew why.

 

He lay on the wood as the two men slept beside him. His hand passed over Jimin’s arm, drawing shivers from his core. His eyes moved lazily over to Tae…he repeated the action for him. No goose-bumps, but a sigh…a fluttering of thick lashes.

 

Suga never thought he had room in his heart for more than one person at a time. He was wrong. And he would do anything not to hurt them anymore. Even let go of everything that he feared of losing the most. First to go, his shame.

​

Chapter 8

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 “Minnie-ah, we need to talk about it sometime…”

 

Jimin’s tiny hands travelled the expanse of porcelain skin beneath him. Like marble, solid, rippling. He was here. He was here in this moment and it’s all that mattered. “Not now.” He whispered.

 

The porcelain man sighed, but he let it go. The touch was just too good, and he succumbed to it. “Minnie-ah…”

Jimin took his hands in his own, pulled them up and placed pale palms on caramel skin. The porcelain man marveled at it. He, shadowy, pale like a specter. Jimin, bright, glowing. Fuck, he was beautiful.

 

“Fuck me…” Jimin whispered. “Please.”

​

/

Jimin wanted to hold his hand, that need stayed steady, through check-in, through security, at the gate. But he couldn’t, because they were two guys

in love and the world around them somehow wasn’t ready for that.

 

However, as they pooled into the crowd of camo jackets and military boots, Jimin pulled the other into a close embrace. His head burrowed in the gentle crook of the other’s neck, might have been brow raising, but it was passable.

 

“I love you…” he breathed, tears burning at his ducts.

 

“I love you more.” Came the response. As sure as the sun would rise.

 

When his number was called the other went…leaving Jimin to watch him from the window. The plane thundered down the runway, taking off with a whoosh into the sky.  Jimin went limp, pressing his forehead to the cool glass as the rain pitter pattered against the pane.

 

“I love you.” He whispered to no one at all.

 

But when he opened his eyes he saw fire. Like asteroids pounding down in bombs against the tarmac. He flicked his eyes up, his lover’s plane breaking apart above him.

 

“No…” he exhaled, chest tight. “Fuck…no!”

 

/

“N-no…”

​

Tae groaned as the sunlight streamed through the stained glass and burned at his eyes. The sky was rosy, and suddenly it was too hot under the covers. His head was still pounding. Why was it still pounding?

 

“No! No…please.”

 

His lashes fluttered open and he was met by Jimin’s profile, eyes screwed shut, lip trembling. In a flash Tae was bolt upright, hand caressing his cheek. Suga was there too, floating somewhere nearby. Something in the back of Tae’s mind thanked all the gods he could fathom, that the man with the hollow chest was still present in this moment.

 

Jimin’s body began to tremble in a chilling sort of way, like he was bursting at the seams. “Please…please. Yoongi-yah.”

 

Suddenly Suga’s hand was there, brushing gentle over the younger’s cheek like silk and once more Jimin was engulfed by a field of goose-bumps. Slowly…his whimpers began to subside, his body dropped back to the wood and his eyes fluttered open.

 

The obvious anguish seemed to fade from Suga’s face almost immediately upon seeing amber eyes. Tae’s panic too fizzling out. He was okay now, he was here…with them.

​

“Hey…” Tae murmured, hand a support on his lower back as he sat himself up. “You okay?”

 

“Yeah…” he sniffled.

 

There were a thousand questions in Tae’s eyes, Jimin could see that and a breeze tickled his neck, a coolness pressed to his shoulder. He smiled, depleted. “Hey, Suga-Hyung.”

 

Tae smiled as the man behind Jimin hooked his chin over the medium’s shoulder. He stayed silent, waited for Jimin to speak first. And he did: “What-what did you hear?”

 

Tae felt his ears begin to burn, he felt a kind of guilt, like he’d intruded on something that wasn’t meant for him. “Not much…you-you were pretty stressed. Calling for someone called Yoongi?”

 

Jimin’s lashes fluttered shut. And Suga curved tighter over him, as much as he could without passing through. “Yeah…” he whispered. “Sorry about that…he…”

 

Tae shook his head. “You don’t have to explain. I know.”

​

Jimin smiled and moved closer to Tae, breaking out of Suga’s phantom hold and burying his face in Tae’s neck.

 

Tae held him near, he would never reject him, but something passed over Suga’s face. It wasn’t so much a hurt, more of a longing, one that he seemed reasonably at peace with having. At peace…it was an ironic phrase. Because Suga was anything but. Was it selfish that in his weakest moments, Tae didn’t want him to be? Didn’t want him to go?

 

Maybe, but it wasn’t his choice, whatever the elder wanted, Tae would give him. Because Suga had brought him three magical things:

 

1.      Those two perfect years wrapped in Halmeoni’s love.

2.      The final break of freedom from his father’s clutches.

3.      Park Jimin. (If it wasn’t for Suga, they might have never met.)

 

Suga crawled across the floorboards, shuffled the scrabble tiles into a sentence. Both other men turned to watch it happen, still swathed in each other.

 

S-H-O-U-L-D G-O T-O-W-N

A-I-R

S-U-N

P-E-O-P-L-E

 

Jimin giggled. “You sure, Hyungie? Won’t you get lonely?” suddenly his lips turned down, gloomy for the elder.

Suga shook his head.

​

T-H-I-N-K-I-N-G T-I-M-E

​

Tae met his eyes. “Hey…we should be back before dinner at least.” Suga nodded. Then Tae’s voice shook slightly as he added. “Please be here…”

​

Suga smiled, a little self-conscious.

 

P-R-O-M-I-S-E.

 

/

It was the most perfect turn-of-the-season day. On the threshold between summer and autumn, the leaves were browning, colouring, ambers, scarlets, golds and the warm breeze carried on it those same mouth-watering scents from Seokjin’s bakery. They stopped there first, joined the Kim/Jeon half-brothers for breakfast. Although, they had not expected Kim Namjoon to be there, nor answer the door in nothing but heart print boxers.

 

“Oh! Christ, Joon, cover yourself.”

 

Namjoon looked far too drowsy and heavy lidded to be bothered by his nakedness. His grouchiness only faded when he met Jimin, who seemed unperturbed by his state of undress.

 

“It’s okay!” he laughed as Namjoon apologised for the twenty-sixth time. “It seems to be a pattern round here, anyway. That I’m greeted by a half-naked man each time I show up unexpectedly.”

 

Seokjin yawned and tightened the cord of his fuzzy pink robe. “Mm, Namjoonie…put some pants on and wake Kookie. I’ll start breakfast.” He patted the younger’s ass.

 

Namjoon nodded and tottered off down the hallway. But, not three seconds later:

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CRASH

 

 Jin made a deep noise of despair. “What’ve you broken this time?!”

 

A beat. “Um-shit…nothiiing!” Tae chuckled, Jimin giggled.

​

Jin rolled his eyes. “I adore him, but I swear he has three left feet, it’s costing me so many knick-knacks and ornaments.”

 

“I hope he’s not that clumsy in bed…” Tae smirked over his tea-cup. Jin swatted him…hard. “Aish!”

 

“Don’t be so filthy. Respect your elders.”

 

Tae pouted.

 

Jin got about as far as cracking the eggs when Namjoon came stumbling back into the kitchen, fully clothed, looking like the literal incarnation of the mugunghwa. All white faced and red around the edges. “Um…Jin-ah…”

​

“Whaaaat?” Jin groaned.

 

“Did you know about Kookie and Hoseok?”

 

“What about them?”

 

“Well, he’s in Kookie’s bed… and he’s pretty naked so- “

 

“WHAT?!”

 

In that moment Hoseok came bounding in, by now donning his underwear.  He yawned, stretched, popping his muscles and Tae’s mouth hung open.  Because shit…nobody saw that one coming. Jimin on the other hand, he laughed and Hoseok lit up. “Jiminie!” he almost skipped to his younger, past a shell-shocked Namjoon and pulled the medium into a tight back hug.

 

“Yah!” Tae exclaimed shoving his neighbour away from his friend. “You are not touching him until you’ve showered!”

​

“And after that you will come straight back here, and you will explain to me why you think it just well and good to DESECRATE my baby brother!”

 

Hoseok dodged Jin’s spatula and Kookie’s eyes hovered wide over the scene, as he padded through the kitchen door, bedhead and all.

The room turned to him. He coughed.

 

“Um…”

 

“JEON JUNGKOOK!”

/

After Namjoon had calmed them all down, Hobi and Jungkook had explained the turn of events coolly. How they went to a karaoke bar. How they had consumed far too much Soju and Hoseok had screamed out a power ballad. How Jungkook had chosen a love song and had sung like an angel. How afterwards they had stumbled out into the rain slick street and kissed under the halo of a street lamp.

​

They let the others guess what happened next. Everyone was silent for a long while. It was Jimin who spoke first. Soft, wistful, eyes turned into adorable little crescents.

 

“You’re in love.” He whispered.

 

Kookie blinked. Then Namjoon raised his brow. “You…you can feel that?”

 

Jimin shook his head. “I don’t need to feel it. It’s clear as the spring's water. You can't see it?”

​

Kookie blushed, scratched the back of his neck and Hobi caught his spare hand, tossing it in his own like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

​

“Right…” Jin mumbled. “Well…that’s okay then.”

​

For his part, Tae couldn’t have cared less, as long as they were happy. Right now, he only had eyes for Park Jimin.

​

/

Considering they were all here. Jin suggested they drive down to Hillcrest for the day, pack a picnic and go swimming by the waterfalls. It was the most beautiful this time of year and on a Monday, it would be near abandoned.

 

It was.

 

And wow… it was a spectacle. As the new breezes blew, the blossom trees rained pink down on the water’s surface. Like confetti.

They watch fall begin, with soup, sandwiches and noodles. The waterfall roaring from afar like a stadium full to the brim with adoring fans. Tae knew if they would scream for anyone, it would be Park Jimin, dressed in the swim shorts he borrowed from Hoseok.

The lines of his body were both toned and curved, a miraculous twist of nature.  His hair was gold in this light, his eyes were honey pools. He was the sweetest surprise.

 

Tae sat by Namjoon’s side, crossed legs, bare feet and marveled at him as he was lifted, giggling onto Jungkook’s wide shoulders. He belonged here, it was crazy, but he did. Park Jimin was made for them.

 

“Hyung?” Tae murmured. Namjoon hummed in response, flipping through something Virginia Woolf. “Do…do you believe in love at first sight?”

 

Namjoon closed his book and rolled onto his back. “I believe nothing’s impossible. I mean look at Hobi and Kook. Known each other forever and nothing. Then one day, something just clicked. And then there’s me and Jin… our love grew steadily, like this tree.” He patted the birch. “If those scenarios can both be possible, I can’t see why you couldn’t fall in love in a split second.”

Tae nodded. “I think I’m in love with Jiminie…”

 

“I know.”

 

Tae whipped round. “You know?”

 

Namjoon laughed, dimpling his cheeks. “Please…you look at that boy like he hung the moon. And he looks at you like you painted the stars.”

 

“He…”

 

“Loves you too?”

 

“But he-he’s never told me that?”

 

“Sometimes words aren’t needed Tae…I expect being a man of vision, Jimin is more into action.”

 

“Right…right, yeah.” Without a farewell, Tae crawled toward the place where the water touched the earth. It was just as Jimin dipped under the water to dart to the bay, collect his towel as the water chilled and the sun fell from the sky. As soon as Jimin broke the surface at the other side, Tae was gathering his cheeks like a flower, his lips the petals that he brought to his own. And behind them the others whooped, shrieked that they knew it.

 

And for the first time, Jimin smiled against his lips.

/

 

The farmer and the ghost whisperer reached Suga when the sun was still auburn, declining an invitation for dinner. They missed their ghost too much.

​

When they found him, he was spread out over the grassy lawn, fingers rustling the blades. Tae smiled as dark eyes met his chocolate brown. “You want to watch the stars tonight?” the younger murmured, longing to run his fingers through Suga’s hair and soothe him.

​

He nodded his yes.