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The knock wakes him in the middle of the night.
Kim Seokjin doesn’t know how long it’s been going before it drags him from sleep, and it takes his hazy brain a hot minute to realize the pounding is growing weaker. Slower. As though whoever is on the other side of the door just can’t keep going.
He’s so tempted to pull a pillow over his head and let them run out of energy, but a frantic burst of knocks startles him fully awake and he jumps from his bed with a shouted, “What?”
Maybe he’ll just shoot the idiot and drink some chamomile to dial down from the adrenaline burst. Quickly pulling on his blue jeans and a tee shirt, he grabs his Sig Sauer from the nightstand, double checking the clip and chamber before thumbing the safety off. No way is he greeting an uninvited guest unarmed and in his boxers.
Another series of knocks has him hollering, “I’m coming, asshole, and it better be an emergency.” Seokjin’s bare feet thump across the hardwood floor. He turns the locks and yanks his door open. “Where’s the fucking fire?”
The answer falls into his arms, tall and awkward, soaking wet, covered in blood and sweat and mud. He smells of petrichor and iron. Shivering so hard his bones are practically rattling. Seokjin almost drops him. He tries to get a good look at the man’s face, but it’s bruised and swollen and just as bloody and dirty as the rest of him. The man keeps one hand pressed to his side as best he can, where Seokjin can see blood slowly oozing between his fingers.
“Shit.” He turns the safety back on and tosses the gun to the couch to free up both hands. “What the fuck, man?”
“Jin-hyung.”
Seokjin freezes at the sound of that voice.
“Blonde looks good on you.”
Kim Taehyung.
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
“You’re bleeding,” Jin says.
“I’m sorry.”
Even a month ago, those words, from this man, would have meant something. Jin doesn’t know if they possibly can now, not after everything Taehyung has done in the last few months to make himself the target of a citywide manhunt.
“For the blood? Or for being here?”
“Both.”
“Who did you piss off now, huh?”
“Same people, different day.” Taehyung chuckles like that’s actually funny, and he’s not bleeding every-fucking-where.
Jin grips Taehyung by the shoulders and pushes him back enough to see him. His hair—always too long to be professional—falls in messy brown waves, blonde highlights obscured by rain and blood and dirt.
“Jesus, man. You’re a fucking wreck.”
He’s been punched at least once, his right eye half swollen shut and his cheek gouged. Seokjin makes a sound at the sight of Tae’s left ear. One of his piercings is torn clean through the lobe.
“Where’s your camera?” He tugs at the strap hanging around Tae’s neck. Frowns at the broken clasp where Tae’s trusty camera always sits. “Taehyung?”
“They—” Tae pauses, a wincing groan depriving him of words. “They took it.”
“They, who?”
“The mayor’s people.”
Jin considers the date and snorts.
“Don’t tell me you crashed the mayor’s town hall speech.” Of course he did. Taehyung’s crusade has no boundaries. He’s dressed for it, now that Jin looks beneath the muddy, bloody surface. Striped dress shirt. Slacks, torn at both knees. “You haven’t had enough of being Public Enemy Number One with them, yet?”
“Someone has to tell the truth.”
“Yeah, okay.” He really doesn’t want to get into any of Taehyung’s truths. The first round of them cost Tae his job. Almost took Jin’s with it. Guilt by association with a man a hair’s breadth away from being tagged a domestic terrorist. “You have some fucking nerve showing up here, of all places.”
Tae’s practically a folk hero to the conspiracy theorists of Seoul, but a villain to the police.
And Jin’s a cop.
He should arrest him. He knows he should. Tae knows he should.
“I know.” Taehyung’s voice is raspy, and Jin notices a necklace of bruises around his slender throat. The collar of his dress shirt is open wide, highlighting the marks like an actual piece of jewelry. Okay, maybe the mayor’s people took Taehyung’s camera, but—since when did they choke or apparently stab people? “I’m sorry, hyung.”
“Stop saying that.”
Jin acknowledges the prickling sensation at the back of his neck. The sixth sense telling him something is very, very wrong here. He gets Taehyung inside his apartment, giving the corridor outside a scan. He leaves Taehyung propped up in his entry hall, retrieving his gun from the couch. Tucking it in the waist of his jeans, against the small of his back, he grabs a roll of paper towels and spray cleaner from his kitchen.
“Don’t go anywhere or I’ll shoot you,” he warns.
Taehyung gives him a thumbs up and slumps sideways to the floor. He’s losing blood, but not so much blood that Jin can’t take care of the drops of it leading from the elevator straight to Jin’s door. He makes two stacks of towels. Putting one under each foot, he sprays and slides his way from his door to the elevator doors and back. It won’t put anyone serious permanently off Tae’s trail, but maybe it will buy enough time for Jin to patch up the damage and get Tae the hell out of his apartment.
He really should just arrest him.
He hurries inside and locks up.
“Are you still conscious?” he asks.
“Mostly,” Tae says.
“Good. Start talking or I put you in handcuffs and drop you at the hospital.”
“Hyung, I—”
“I said stop saying that.” He picks Taehyung up bridal style, trying not to notice that he feels lighter than the last time Jin carried him like this. “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”
“I thought you meant sorry.”
“No,” Jin says. “No, I think you still owe me some of those.”
Tae seems to shrink in his arms.
Even caked in rain and mud, he feels too light. Jin sets him on the floor of his walk-in shower, the easiest way he can think to clean him up enough to assess the damage. He reaches for the shower handle, but Tae’s hand wraps around his ankle.
“Wait,” he chokes out. Taehyung flops on his back and tears at his shirt. “Help me. Please.”
Seokjin crouches, his frustration an audible sigh as he pushes Tae into a sitting position and drags his rain-soaked shirt over his head. He’s too rough, an asshole about it, and Taehyung drops back with a thump, his head hitting the ceramic too hard for comfort.
“Fucking hell, Taehyung.” His hands move without conscious instruction, easing beneath Tae’s head to assess the damage. “I didn’t mean—”
“I’m fine,” Tae says.
“Oh-kay,” Jin drawls.
“My head is fine.” Taehyung winces when Jin’s fingers find a fresh bump. “Mostly fine. Move. I need to get—”
Jin scrambles back as Taehyung’s hands dig into his side.
“Jesus Christ.”
Tae bites back a whine as he actually digs into his side. His fingers reach inside the gash that runs from his hip to the bottom of his ribs, his eyes rolling up in his head, his body shuddering. Jin bites back the urge to puke.
“Taehyung-ah. What are you doing?” Jin grabs at his hands, earning a growl from Taehyung who finally pulls a tiny plastic bag from—from inside his body. “What. The. Fuck.”
“Seemed like a good hiding place when they were tossing me around like a ragdoll searching me.” He goes limp on the tile, eyes closed, just… breathing.
“Drug runners and smugglers hide shit inside their bodies,” Jin mutters.
“Paranoid police photographers in the process of getting almost murdered, too.”
“Alliteration means you’re not dying, that’s good. But you’re an ex-police photographer.” Jin shakes his head.
“Paranoid still applies.” Tae’s eyes flicker open. “I finally got it.” The bag slips from his fingers to the tile. He pushes it towards Seokjin. “Finally… got everything you need.”
“Damn it, Tae” Jin stares at the bag, at the micro SD storage card inside. “Why are you still on about this?”
This. He doesn’t have to give it any further definition. They both know what he’s talking about.
“You’ll believe me now.” Tae’s gaze holds too much for Jin to parse.
“It’s never been about belief,” Jin says. “It’s been about proof.”
It all started six months ago at a construction site collapse that killed two homeless women taking shelter for the night. And the edge of a document that Tae noticed poking through the rubble. He took pictures. He showed the evidence collection team. Took more pictures.
The document never made it to evidence. Neither did any pictures of it.
Taehyung’s paranoia set in almost immediately. He had back up, of course he did. But he wouldn’t show anyone. Not even Jin. His coworker. His boyfriend. Okay, they were pretty new at that part, but not new enough. Tae trusted him with his body, just not so much his mind and heart.
Five months ago, the police department fired him.
Four months ago, he dropped off the radar.
Three months ago, he abandoned all principle, all legality, in his quest to prove the mayor’s involvement in the collapse. One collapse became four, when compared to past events. With whispers of fraud, embezzlement, and more deaths.
Jin knows as many of the details as the public does.
Because he still cares. Because he’s an idiot.
Taehyung’s wide gaze shifts to the bag and Jin follows him.
He should arrest him.
“What? Now you trust me?”
By all rights, he should be delivering Taehyung to a hospital in handcuffs, just like he threatened. If he gets caught harboring Tae, his career is over. Hell, he might wind up in jail himself.
“It’s never been about trust.” Tae’s pointed echo of his words makes Jin clench his jaw. “It’s been about keeping you safe.”
You’ll believe me now.
Tae’s words crawl under his skin, make him feel itchy.
“Let’s get you patched up and I’ll look at it.”
“Can’t stay.” Taehyung shakes his head. “They can’t find me here.”
“Were you followed?”
“You think I was watching for a tail?” Taehyung laughs, but there’s no humor in the sound. “I’ve been punched. Choked. Shanked in the middle of the fucking street by some punk with more muscles than brain cells. That last one stole my camera. My bag. Left me to bleed out in the rain.”
“The punching and choking?” Jin folds up Taehyung’s shirt and presses it against the cut. Tae hisses but otherwise doesn’t protest. “That didn’t come from your random thug?”
“Just because you want to punch me doesn’t mean everyone does. Nothing is random anyway.”
“You managed to get into two scrapes in one night?”
“Not. Random.” Tae closes his eyes, exhales. “And it was three if you count the speech.”
For far too long he says nothing. Thirty seconds or less that takes a lifetime to pass. Jin’s about to yell about his stupid belief in this.
“I got caught at the next site by some giant with ham hands. Before I went to the speech.”
“The… next site?” Jin understands the implication of the words. He knows full well there hasn’t been any collapse since Taehyung started digging.
“I know,” Tae says. “You don’t believe me.”
“Tae.”
“Believe that.” He wags his fingers at the bag.
Jin gapes as Taehyung holds the shirt to his side, crawls to his knees, staggers to his feet. He jumps to his own, shocked still when Tae’s free hand caresses his cheek. Just the tips of his fingers, but it’s a sensation he remembers too well. Remembers the times when—even though they were still new—he hoped he might never be without this simple touch.
The later times, when he batted Tae’s hand away because he was busy.
The last time, when he’d shoved Taehyung away, damning him for fearmongering.
“I have to go,” Tae whispers. His eyes are diamond bright with tears hovering on his lash line. “I lo—”
Taehyung clears his throat, rolls his lips in, bites back whatever he meant to say—and Jin suddenly, maddeningly wants him to finish saying it, needs to hear him say that—with a short shake of his head. He pushes past Jin and makes for the door at a pace an octogenarian with a walker could best.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Away from you.”
That… stings. More than it has any right to. But Taehyung looks over his shoulder, and Jin can see the tears are falling now. Winding through the dirt and blood on his face.
“You—you don’t even have a shirt.” He blindly reaches for his coat rack and tosses a hoodie to Tae.
“The card.”
“Yeah, I’ll pop it in the laptop—”
“Don’t look at it yet, hyu—” Tae squeezes his eyes shut, sighing. “Seokjin-ssi.”
And that… that breaks something inside Jin. To be called formally. But he’s listening to his locks open one by one. Staring dumbly as Tae checks the hallway before leaving.
“Watch the news,” he says. “You’ll know when it’s safe.”
Jin should stop him.
“Please understand.” There are stories in Taehyung’s eyes.
Jin needs to stop him.
“And wait just a little longer.” Stories he knows he needs to hear. “I need to keep you safe.”
Jin doesn’t stop him.
He watches the news relentlessly. Spends more time awake and combing through websites and news channels than is healthy for any one human being. There’s a construction site collapse a week later, because of course there is, and Seokjin almost checks the SD card. Almost.
A collapse seems the opposite of safe, though.
It’s three weeks before he sees it, when he’s running on caffeine and worry.
He’s so fucking tired, he almost misses it.
The crawler runs by on the bottom of the screen, over and over, whatever news they aren’t actually talking about, until the words finally catch in his mind. Until they are burned into his soul.
BREAKING NEWS: POLICE PHOTOGRAPHER TURNED CONSPIRACY THEORIST KIM TAEHYUNG FOUND DEAD OF APPARENT SUICIDE
There’s a crash. Breaking ceramic. Jin realizes he dropped his coffee cup.
Taehyung is dead.
He doesn’t do anything immediately.
Jin needs a moment. Needs time to process the sudden emptiness inside him.
This can’t be what Tae meant.
He doesn’t really know if that’s any sort of sign of safety. But it’s the only sign he’s going to get now.
Still, he doesn’t do anything immediately.
Jin goes to work. He takes on new cases. Smiles and laughs with his coworkers. Grabs beers after work with his friends. He doesn’t close himself off. Doesn’t allow himself to forget he has work. Or friends.
He doesn’t do anything immediately.
Except cry.
It takes him seven days to dig out the SD card from where he hid it. Just in case.
He wants to blame Taehyung for inflicting his conspiracy brain paranoia on Jin, but the second he opens the SD card—offline—his jaw drops.
Pictures. Document scans. Phone records. Financial records.
Taehyung put it all together. He connected all the dots into a picture worth killing over.
This.
This card contains proof.
This card carries redemption.
This… is not how he wanted Taehyung to prove him wrong.
“You were supposed to come back,” he whispers at the final image on his screen, at the only tangible proof of Kim Taehyung left in his possession. “Damn you.”
He doesn’t say his name aloud. Just in case.
“Come back.”
Taehyung strung an abstract collection of moments and data into realism.
Seokjin copies everything. Multiple times. He utilizes a chain of couriers to deliver one to the National Intelligence Service and waits. He gives them seventy-two hours to act. He verified enough of the data on the card to make him a believer in half that time, and they have a hundred times his off-book resources. Plus… he needs to know how high this goes. Needs to know who the mayor—the second most powerful man in Korea—has covering his tracks.
Jin knew this went high.
So he’s got two hackers working for him round the clock, watching for any sign of life from the NIS.
By the time it finally comes—another sixty hours past Jin’s deadline—they’re far too late. By then Jin has sent everything to the major news networks.
The lead story in twenty-four changes the city of Seoul.
The mayor’s office is only the first domino to fall.
“Tonight we shed light on the life and death of Kim Taehyung. The former police photographer stumbled across a cover up that would change—and ultimately end—his life. The evidence collected by Kim Taehyung reveals a web of insurance fraud, money laundering, and the deaths of at least a dozen civilians connecting the mayor’s office with top officials in the National Intelligence Service.
“It all began just over eight months ago, when Kim photographed the site of a construction collapse in Yongsan-gu.
“Though the NIS has had the information we are about to share with you in their custody for a week now…”
Jin turns off the television.
“Vindication,” he whispers to the SD card he now wears on a chain around his neck, always tucked beneath his shirt. Protected. Safe. “I wish I could offer you more, Tae-yah. But your family will know. Korea will know. You were a good man.”
He lifts the card to his lips.
“You were the best man.”
Seokjin leaves his job. Sells most everything he owns. Cash in bank, he shoves two suitcases in the trunk of a rental car and drives south to Daegu. Visiting Taehyung’s memorial doesn’t bring him any closure, really. Meeting Taehyung’s family—that hurts even more. They’re still as raw and angry as he is, though with no guilt lodged in their throat like Jin has.
He spends a week there. Mourning.
The mayor is arrested.
Taehyung’s family is mourning.
District mayors, members of the NIS, and even Blue House staff are arrested.
Jin wonders if he’ll ever stop mourning.
There’s one file on the original SD card that Jin doesn’t share with anyone. He opens the photo on his phone. Rubs his thumb over the image of Tae, uncaring about smudging the glass.
“Did you ever do anything without wearing your beautiful heart right on your sleeve?” His watery chuckle threatens a fresh round of tears. “Who wears short sleeves in the snow, Taehyung-ah?”
It takes him time to figure out where the picture was taken.
Time is all he has left, so that’s okay.
He doesn’t want to share the picture with anyone, but visiting Tae’s family gives him an answer in the form of Taehyung’s passport. Sitting in the Kim family house in Daegu, going through Taehyung’s things like a thief of moments—he wants all of the moments he can get, even ones he wasn’t part of, maybe especially ones he wasn’t part of—he learns more about Taehyung with each one.
Maybe it’s a fool’s errand, but he has the time.
Time only makes him fall in love more.
And then he finds it, tucked in the nightstand by Taehyung’s bed, from when he’d come home to see his family in the days before his death. Jin flips through the pages of the passport, only the first few stamped with anything.
The second page—after a trip to Japan but before a trip to Thailand—
New Zealand.
“Hyung, this was filmed in New Zealand. All these beautiful places. Can you imagine? I want to go there.”
A Lord of the Rings movie marathon. Curled up on the sagging couch in Taehyung’s crappy studio apartment. Tae had spent more time oohing and aahing over the scenery than anything else.
“You can visit the Hobbit houses, hyung. How cool is that?”
He rubs at the ache in his chest. Sometimes it grows too big for him to handle. It reduces him to small breaths. Smaller movements. The smallest moments. He strings each together one by one until he can take a full breath again. Until the world doesn’t crush him by simply existing.
Jin wonders if he’ll ever stop mourning.
Time is the only hope he has.
“I just—it’s selfish, I know,” he tells the SD card as he sits in Incheon International Airport, all of his worldly possessions in tow, waiting to board the Korean Air flight to Auckland, New Zealand. The flight leaves a little after eight PM KST and will land in Auckland just before ten-thirty AM NZST. They’re only one hour ahead of Korea, so the adjustment should be easy enough. “But I wish this had started after I told you I love you. I wish so much, Tae-yah. You should have at least known I love you.”
You should know I don’t know how to stop loving you.
A call comes over the PA system.
“Now boarding priority passengers, Korean Air flight 129, non-stop service to Auckland, New Zealand. Pre-boarding for Prestige seating passengers begins…”
Jin tucks the card beneath his shirt. He’s a last minute passenger, so he boards the flight just about dead last, knowing full well he looks red-eyed and strung out. The flight staff probably think he’s high. He doesn’t want to explain to anyone that he’s grieving.
He’s still not ready to share Taehyung with anyone.
After snack and beverage service, the flight attendants come around offering pillows and blankets.
He’s so tired, he parts with the commodity fees gratefully.
The pillow and blanket don’t make sleeping mostly upright all that comfortable.
He’s so tired, maybe it won’t matter.
Jin shifts and shoves at the pillow, managing to lay on his side and closes his eyes against the haggard reflection he finds in the window. His eyes burn, the tears sneaking past his eyelids to spill down his cheeks.
He’s so tired of crying.
New Zealand is incredible. He understands why Taehyung wanted to come here. It feels a bit like the edge of the world, like nothing bad could ever find him here. Liquidating his life gave him enough money to buy a small home, but he prefers traveling. There’s something peaceful about the impermanence of wandering.
He doesn’t need a home yet.
He has a camera of Taehyung’s and he’s slowly learning to use it. He sends pictures home. To Taehyung’s family, too, when they call to check up on him.
Jin smiles at the selca and hits send. Just him and some fuzzy goats. Taehyung’s mom loves it. He supposes he’s a connection to her son, flimsy though it may be. He wonders if Taehyung would approve.
He travels New Zealand top to bottom and back again. He’s charmed to find himself greeted as a returning friend in the smaller places he lingered on the first trip through. Finds himself content to linger a second time.
And some of the emptiness in him feels a tiny bit… less.
Jin doesn’t find a home.
He’s not sure he’s looking for one. He’s not sure of anything he’s doing once his funds run out, but he’s got a couple months left before he’s meant to either get the hell out of New Zealand, or apply to make this arrangement more permanent.
He’s making his third trip to Queenstown. He caved about a week ago and began updating his social media accounts, so he doesn’t hesitate to snap a shot from the top of the Skyline gondola ride.
The best view in town! he captions it, as though there’s more filling him than a distant ache he can’t soothe. There are three strangers on board the ride with him, ogling the same breathtaking view, no doubt heading to the top for perfectly normal and wonderful reasons.
Dinner. Drinks. Stargazing. Living.
Jin’s almost there.
He’s less empty than he was a month ago.
A cell phone chimes somewhere behind him, and he hears a rough chuckle.
“I don’t know, hyung,” a warm voice says. A voice he knows. A voice he’s ached for. An impossible voice. “I’m pretty sure I have the best view in town.”
Jin spins around, fast enough to startle the other two passengers. But he only has eyes for one. Diagonal from him. Setting down a cup on the bench as he stands. There’s a camera around his neck. His hair is darker now. Longer. Pulled up into a small knot. Wire-rim glasses perch on his nose, not quite obscuring the fresh scar on his right cheek. There’s a bandage over his left ear lobe. He looks… real. Fuller. Richer. Happier, than when Jin last—
“You got rid of the blonde, too.”
“Taehyung?” Jin rubs his eyes. Shakes his head.
“You’re here,” Tae says softly. “It’s—I mean—this is okay, right? Okay to call you hyung? Okay to hug you?”
He must nod or something, because there’s a bit of shuffling, some English please-s, thank you-s, and sorry-s exchanged, then long fingers wrap around his wrists, and he can feel Taehyung pulling him into his arms. The cameras between them are shoved out of the way with a laughing, heartfelt curse, and then Taehyung’s arms are tight around his waist. He shivers when Taehyung nuzzles his cheek. When his breath touches Jin’s skin, hot and uneven. When Taehyung trembles against him.
“Am—am I dead? Dreaming?”
“Neither,” Tae whispers. “I’m alive, Seokjinnie.”
That tremor in Taehyung’s body convinces him.
Jin cracks, shatters right inside the shelter of Taehyung’s arms. Tae holds him tight. Lets him cry. Holds him so very tight. Like he never wants to let go. Jin sobs, barely hearing anything beyond gentle murmurs from Taehyung.
Taehyung.
“Thank you, hyung. My beautiful, brave Seokjinnie.” Taehyung’s gratitude and praise piece Jin back together, until he’s convinced he’s probably not dead. “You did so well, hyung. I wasn’t sure you’d understand why I included the New Zealand picture.”
“I didn’t,” Jin says, his voice thick with tears. “I just—I needed to be closer to you.”
He isn’t sure they could ever be close enough to fill him back up. He’s been empty for so long. But Taehyung holds him… so very tight, and Jin knows he’s been empty, too.
I’m sorry I abandoned you.
The words won’t come, but he knows they will.
“How did you find me?”
“Social media.” Taehyung’s hands smooth up and down his back. The others in the gondola are openly staring at their reunion, but Jin couldn’t care less. Taehyung keeps one arm around his waist—tight around him—and holds up his own phone with the other, showing his profile.
VANTE, 28, photographer, he/him, New Zealand
“Vante?”
“I’m kind of an artist here.” Taehyung shrugs. “When I visited before—before everything—I came because I knew what I might be starting. Knew I might need a place to go if I survived.”
“But you didn’t survive. It—it was all over the news.”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“A friend on the inside in Daegu,” Tae says. He lets Jin go. Gives them both a bit of space for this. “A whole lot of very compromising photographs.”
Jin’s brows rise.
“For the autopsy report.” Tae blushes, and it’s so real and wonderful Jin can’t help but touch his fingers to Tae’s cheek, to the tip of his ear, careful of his injuries. “Put my photo manipulation skills to use to match the wounds on me with the actual corpse that was autopsied.”
“Tae-yah.” There’s a reproach in his voice. “Your family.”
“I know.” The look in his eyes—Jin believes he actually does know. “The only safe me became a dead me.”
“Taehyungie.”
“I don’t think they’ll ever understand the path I chose.” He licks his lips, his smile too uncertain to reach his eyes. “I hope you will.”
Jin considers everything he’s learned. About the cover up. About Taehyung.
And he nods.
“It’s a long story, Jin-ah, and you’ve only heard the middle.” Taehyung stares out over Lake Wakatipu for a long moment before focusing on Jin once more. “Can I tell you it over dinner?”
The gondola docks and they file off, Taehyung tossing his cup in the trash. They walk side by side toward the restaurant and bar welcoming visitors. Taehyung walks slowly, and Jin notices he’s favoring his injured side a bit. Realizes it really hasn’t even been long enough for him to fully heal.
It feels like forever.
“I’ll probably need the ride home,” Tae goes on. “Maybe breakfast, too.”
It feels like yesterday.
“Home?” Seokjin thinks briefly of Korea. Of the constant flow of Seoul. Thinks maybe he really doesn’t want to leave New Zealand. “Where’s home?”
“Not far from here.” Taehyung points vaguely down the mountain. “The view’s not quite this, but it’s good.”
“Vante can afford lakefront?”
“What, you haven’t heard of me?” Tae nudges him, shoulder to shoulder.
“You’re going to tell me everything, right?”
“Can I start with what I wanted to tell you?” Tae asks. He stops walking, fidgets as though nervous again. “That night I left, I mean. I wanted to tell you something. It’s the most important part of the story.”
“I lo—”
Jin can hear that aborted declaration in his mind. Remembers exactly how his heart hoped it would end.
“I mean it, Tae. Tell me everything.”
“I love you, Kim Seokjin.” Taehyung smiles. It’s one part nerves, two parts excitement, and all a thing of beauty. Fuck, he’s missed this smile so much. Missed Taehyung even more. “I love you.”
Seokjin pulls Tae close. Runs the pad of his thumb over Tae’s bottom lip.
“You’re sure I’m not dead?”
“I’m sure we are alive.”
“Okay, yeah.” Jin leans in, kisses the corner of Taehyung’s smile. There’s a hint of chocolate lingering that reminds Jin of winter mornings in Seoul, walking into the station with Taehyung by his side. Jin with a coffee in hand, Taehyung with cocoa. “Yeah.”
He reaches out, links his hand with Tae’s. Their fingers lace, palms warm against each other.
“This story of yours,” Jin says. “How does it end?”
Jin didn’t find a home.
“Happily, I think?”
He thinks maybe home has found him.
“You think?”
“It’s a work in progress, hyung.”
A work in progress. Moments strung together. He draws Taehyung into his arms and knows he’s found it.
Home.
Home is in Kim Taehyung.
“I love you, too, Taehyung-ah.”