It's heavy on the cushion. His body and time seems pointless. It's a venomous moment and Taehyung feels numb. From the past few hours, he's seen all sorts of conversations go in and out of his room. All while never leaving his sheets, all prettied up and dressed for school.

But in the end , he never went.

His phone ring, and it takes a while before he feels himself slowly getting up. Taehyung blinks, rubs his eyes and then blinks some more because maybe he really have just been sleeping it all off at last.

"Hello?" Taehyung finally manages to to greet but it all sounds wrong in his mouth as if everything that leaves feels forced.

"Tae-" Jimin splutter out instantly, but falls to a painful stand for a moment, and it takes to long before his next words "Hyun is in the hospital"

Sometimes Taehyung forgets no one knows.

"Oh really?"

Taehyung says and stares down at his hands, flinches at the way his voice sounds so unconvincing. He's not sure anymore if he will ever feel anything for that name again. Because right now, he can't really feel anything.

Jimin must sense a change in mood because he's quiet for a moment. But it's as if he isn't thinking like him. "Did you- did you hear about who caused it?"

"Caused it?" Taehyung asks a bit more prepared this time.

But now, it's as if Jimin is the nervous one clinging on his toes.

"There's rumors going around that Jeongguk was the one who messed him up. And-"

"And what Jimin?"

The heaviness grows in his voice when the words reach his ears. It aches. Hands gripping the phone, knuckles turning white. Why would Jeongguk do that.

"Hyun said it's all because of something you did"

---

It takes only more than one hour until Taehyung finally gets it. That Jeongguk may know, jeongguk may know everything and Hyun was the one who told him. And he was so scared of just that, but what is fearing him now isn't that.

It never was when it comes to Jeongguk.

So he doesn't realize he's already here, with the weighting down of his heart and low breathing.

In front of the glowing signs of boxing matches and the familiar underground hoarse where he watched Jeongguk's first match. The only difference now is that it's so quiet, and not a single soul corrupted the entrance and the main venue.

His fingertips feels warm even when the dread of summer tugs had disappeared and the chill of fall should feel cold.

Taehyung doesn't know what he's feeling, all he knows is that being so blatantly mad for the first time like this and it makes his insides crawl when he steps inside the main venue, and he sees him.

He sees Jeongguk

And he can see the sweat glistening on his back and shoulders against his black shirt where he stood, in front of a punching bag. And he stops his blows against it just as Taehyung steps inside.

It's as if he can instantly sense the ballerina is there when he turns around.

The moment their eyes meet Taehyung regrets it. Regrets it because he knows he could never look away when Jeongguk meets his gaze.

Jeongguk stares right back, doesn't know how to stop when there's a shift in his eyes when he sees him. Taehyung makes his brain turn shut.

He stares back with such intensity for a long moment, expression still so unreadable and Taehyung hates it.

Hates the way he can never read Jeongguk's thoughts sometimes. And hates the way he always makes him feel so comfortable when he meets his eye.

He doesn't need that now.

"Why did you do it?" Taehyung starts out. Feels himself starting to tense up already.

It's ridiculous, so ridiculous.

Taehyung is so mad. He's so frustrated because none of them knows the consequences of what they do. They don't know about that day.

Not how his skin, how it bruises under every touch that feels like it's scrapping his insides until it's just bones. They don't know about how he can't sleep, how it's so hard to stay asleep without thinking.

Thinking of what went wrong, what could have happened if he had just finished up his ballet a few minutes earlier.

They don't know that Taehyung wants to feel numb, that he doesn't want to feel anything. But he can, he can feel every touch and it burns his skin. And when he can't talk he feels tired. His throat aches just as much, the kind that makes his heart sink. They don't know that what hurted him the most, was that he trusted Hyun so much.

It's thick, the air between them, The blonde is looking for an anything, an answer in Jeongguk to make him feel like he knows something.

But Jeongguk's eyes seem to focus on his neck that's covered in a light turtleneck sweater and his gaze grows dark. 

But only a moment later his eyes snap up to meet Taehyung's again. "You already heard"

He talks so casually when he runs his fingers through the fringes of his hair dampened with sweat.

But it makes Taehyung frown and he balls his fists together. He looks visibly upset.

He has been ever since the phone call.

"That is the problem!" Taehyung flinches at the sound of his own voice, it's load but he can't help it.

"Everyone- everyone has heard of it and now rumors are going around again about you-"

"They are always going around, why does that matter now" Jeongguk flatly says, narrows his eyes.

And it's as if he doesn't bother when he continues to stretch the bandages around his hands. That are covered in bruises.

But what pisses him off is Taehyung's next words.

"I never asked you to do that" Taehyung starts sharply, feels the weight of his heart sinking.

"You're the last person that should care"

"Do you think I fucking want to care!?"

Taehyung almost flinches when Jeongguk bite back, expression now hard and angry as he glares at Taehyung.

And the blonde feels himself  immediately regretting the words the second they leave his mouth. Because there's a tenseness in the air and in Jeongguk when he moves closer towards him.

Taehyung tries to speak but his throat feels tight and his head is swimming when he looks so close into the dark haired's sharp eyes.

"I warned you to stay away from me" Jeongguk lowers out a mere inches from him. Taehyung doesn't want him to see him. Not now, not when he can feel his hands shaking and his nails digging his skin.

"That's not the point-"

"That is the fucking point! I warned you and now I don't know what the hell you've done to me Taehyung but I will care weather you or I like it or not"

Taehyung swallows and he doesn't find himself able to speak. Because this time he sees a shift in Jeongguk's eyes when he looks at him, and it makes his insides shurl to look away.

Jeongguk looks at him, but it's like he looks at him properly for the first time. Fighting the urge to understand why he even cares for Taehyung the way he had never been able to do before.

It's feels dark and Taehyung can barely see him, The only light source being the faint glowering light through the signs of the walls.

And when Jeongguk move closer, he remembers for a mere second the day they were under the studio room.

"Don't think," Jeongguk continues, jaw clenching tightly "That I will stand and do nothing when I would have killed him if it wasn't for you"

Taehyung had been wrong when he thought Jeongguk was cold before. Because the Jeongguk before him now looks anything than the the one he knew.

Ans Taehyung wants to argue, wants to keep being mad. Wants to say that he really doesn't have a right to anything, that he doesn't need this. He doesn't want Jeongguk to seem only more bad because of the rumors, that he doesn't care about Hyun. But he doesn't, instead he shoves it all down. Because he is tired,

he feels really tired.

And his face slowly crumples, eyelids feeling heavy under Jeongguk's when there's tears building in his eyes. His next exhale is shaky and when he speaks, his voice cracks - "I- I don't want them to think you're a bad person, I never wanted that I just- I never wanted this gguk- I promise, I never wanted this-"

Taehyung can't register when he started crying into faint sobs, not when the next thing he feels is the strength of two arms pulling him against Jeongguk's chest, wrapped around the hallow of his waist.

His warm breath is tripped against his ear. And there's a hand running so gently through his blonde locks.

"I won't let anything happen to you again"

When Jeongguk's hard words turn so careful in his ear, the tears he'd been holding back further falls and he feels himself fall apart.

When he slowly clutches his arms around Jeongguk's neck and voice break into muffled sobs against his chest.

"I- I didn't let him kiss me gguk- I really didn't let him" Taehyung cries and it's painful.

He can feel Jeongguk's body tense up against him when he pulls away, sets his jaw and his eyes darken under the squares of his hardened face, but he doesn't do anything even if he's body reacts in a way on the mention of Hyun, he stops when he meets Taehyung's teared eyes again.

Instead he slowly cups Taehyung's face between his bruised hands, and when he slowly brush away the tears against his cheeks, Jeongguk thinks of how he's spent all these years thinking nothing matters.

To say the intangible that no one matters. But even so, around Taehyung he isn't himself.

He can't control anything.

Nor when doing something he never thought he would do when he slowly presses a kiss on top of his blonde curls.

That now, Taehyung just wants to stay like this forever, knows he can't. Knows it's not supposed to be like this.

But Jeongguk makes him feel like he is okay.

-

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