tw: this story contains smut, homophobia, references to suicidal thoughts, drug/ alcohol abuse, underage sex, profanity, mentions of self harm and toxicity. read with caution

this chapter has a slow start to set the scene and koo's character and thought process a bit but i promise you won't regret it, thank you for sticking around my loves!

also please don't be silent readers and comment! i'd love to hear your thoughts<3

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a black hole of uncertainty that threatens to consume us, perhaps if i was knowledgeable of nurturing light, seeing it as anything but a commodity, i would bask in its glory in the few moments we are faced with it in this immortal stimulus.

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-jeongguk-

i hate being in love. 

its a cause for concern, really. 

but where the willow trees blossom and the bluebells bloom, my hand is occupied with a book that weighs more than the gravity of my being.

it is light, like the breeze. a tinge of pine, and dandelion dust, and the gingerbread soil beneath the grass. my fingers are engaged, flicking crisp pages as though i was reading a life story that would somehow alter the course of my own. life that is; though it never does.

some of us are not privileged that way.

the summer in the village of somerset, in the rejuvenating months of july and august, was temperate. like spring almost. it was funny how one thing longed to be another and when obtained, it was inevitably predestined to never live up to its potential.

its such like humans in that way. though there wasn't really a thought in my head for what i pleased.

i was content with the spring-like summer, and the misplaced sycamore seeds in my lap, and jagged bark that dug into the crown of my head and the sap that stained my shirt. i was pleased with a lot of things, like how i couldn't see the sun from where i was sat, under the willow, its weeping lashes shielding me from a world outside. 

i was also not pleased with a lot of things. 

i hate heat, and sun cream and watermelon flavoured chewing gum. i hate the paddling pool with the stagnant water that hasn't been changed since last summer- the one that sits lonely in the corner of the garden. i hate the sun when it blinds me, it serves its purpose all too well, i hate things that serve their purpose because it makes everything feel alright, and not a lot is right. in fact, all is wrong the way that its meant to be wrong, the way i see it, the more i think is right, the more i am submitting to the agenda. i wish not to. because i am not a follower of the ways of the earth, and i have plans- that probably won't change the world or myself for that matter. but at least i am autonomous in that sense.

my sister- my adoptive sister, lara, yawns outside. she's clad in a bikini top that covers next to nothing, and it rivals the sun, its shiny gold fabric reflecting spots of light through the gap in the willow whilst she turns, sunbathing. some dots touch my legs, i yank them back out of the way as though i've been scorched.

i say 'adoptive' because that's what she is, and for the majority, just out of habit because she's white, and i'm very much not. and for people with a sub zero iq, its rather difficult to put two and two together, so with full vigour i say 'adopted'. its simpler that way. and then right after that i say i'm adopted too. 

my whole life is adopted. like it isn't my own and was never meant to be. but that's a thought for another day.

i prefer the sweet, lonesome cocoon of my infantile willow den. the world slumbered here, in this hemisphere, in a hemisphere with a circumference of six metres. it was small but it was substantial, plenty for me and my thoughts to run free. 

she's always been flashy.

skin upon skin, upon skin, upon skin. sometimes not her own skin. i have yet to experience skin upon skin that doesn't belong to my own, though i don't know how that will pay out. but the point is not that.

the point is that i know exactly who she's being flashy for.

kim taehyung.

if the world really was my oyster, and i had the potential to subdue it, tailor a revolution and nuture a renaissance, i would teeter with the ideology that eradicating this one person from the face of the poor globe would be for the greater good, utilitarianism lets say. 

taehyung was a problem. a problem that had no answer.

which didn't make sense in my head because for a problem to be defined as such, there had to be an answer. something that would not leave my jaw slacken with discomposure and utter perplexion and perhaps a little, okay maybe a lot of, lust.

kim taehyung does not have an answer to himself, and he most certainly does not fit in my life, yet even a thousand miles away he seems to be the one in control. 

he was no longer a thousand miles away- he was perhaps about twenty-and-three-quarters. metres that was, it would only explain how i felt a slight myocardial infarction manifesting in my chest. not at the thought, but at the fact.

taehyung was close, i knew this for a number of reasons.

the drag of gravel beneath wheels, the crescendo of the slightly employed, viable engine, the gut wrenching silence that followed when it shut down.

a car had pulled up in the driveway.

birds chirped to fill that silence, but it did nothing to drown out the sound of my pulse in my very own ears, palpitating like a cod out of water.

through a small fissure in the willow leaves, i spy a sandaled foot exit a car door. a distant slam shuts it and i see a shadow of the figure on the ground, its arms are up in the air. its not praying, its stretching.

i'd know those feet anywhere.

it sounds strange to say but there is only one person that i know that wears birkenstocks: and its certainly not lara. 

i delicately place down my book  on the blanket beneath me and breath through my nose. i should open my mouth, invite in some oxygen but the thought doesn't cross my mind. i stupidly ignore my need for air. sycamore seeds are dusted off my lap, and almost immediately, i shamelessly start crawling in the direction of the noise. 

my fingers fumble softly at the leaves, prying them apart to get a closer view of the outside. i'm met with not one, but two pairs of feet. one pair is on its tip-toes, when my eyes travel further, i see her.

lara.

lara and her hands.

lara and her hands thrown around him like he was her property. 

oh to be a girl and get what you want.

it makes my insides churn.

in fact, it makes every inch of my solitude freeze up with displeasure. 

her face is buried in his neck, his hands on her waist, their bodies suffocating close that no air can squeeze between them. my throat feels the same, closed up and incapable of functioning. 

breathing wasn't the concern, in this moment. and therefore, i don't. breath is ceased in my larynx - i don't dare breathe for the whole thirsty seconds that they were wrapped around each other in case i miss something.

because there had to be something. anything.

anything to explain why he wouldn't let her go. 

and then i got it.

i understood, the moment their faces were pressed together and i couldn't tell whose lips were who's anymore. they shared saliva like it was their last supper and devouring each other's faces was expected of them. 

they kissed like they had business to deal with.

i understand. that i'm not supposed to be looking. that they think no one can see them and i should probably respect that, so i let go of the vine and stumble back onto the palms of my hands, dirt digs into skin but i don't feel that. in fact, i tell myself that all is well and that i feel nothing.

but why was there a gnawing feeling in my chest?

i'll tell you why. 

my phone has answers. though kim taehyung doesn't. 

its retrieved from my back pocket, my fingers lunge over the keypad to tremulously unlock it. the blood in my head is louder than my thoughts. 

every now and then, i open my messages and scroll to the bottom. my eyes graze the lines of text, they scroll, scroll, scroll till i'm met with a certain message that has be catapulting down to reality. my breath hitches, or whatever is left of it that is. 

its real. kim taehyung is real. 

he's real and he's kissing my sister.

and i can't help but think about the cadence of his mouth, the warmth she must feel, the plumet of his tongue.

i'm reminded that he is a human and that humans are over-ambitious, over-achieving forgetful monsters. i tell myself he's a monster.

he's a monster. he's a monster. he's a monster. 

i read the text again. my vision flutters back to peer once more at them. to scowl at their intimacy and maybe start breathing again.

but breath doesn't come. 

because he's not there. lara is walking into the house with a suitcase, a heavy one because she's struggling. i wonder what's in it, certainly not explanations because kim taehyung doesn't possess any of those in his wake. 

i'm crouching now, craning my neck between the leaves to see if he's gone around to the other side of his car. he's not there, like the mere sight of him was a ghost, a sight for sore eyes as such.

i probably look like a dunce, quasimodo-esque hunchback with my neck stuck out my den like an ostrich. i pray mum isn't looking down from the balcony window.

i most definitely won't find him. because taehyung is lost and i am not at the top of his seeking list so i can't help him in that aspect.

and i'm going to give up.

totally.

i'm about to give up and retreat... when i feel him.

its more that i just know he's there.

watching me silently. 

intently. 

he has a serenade that cannot go unnoticed. 

the warmth of his bare leg against my own, the breath of his mouth that trespasses on my nape. he's invaded my space like a moth to a flame, sun kissed blonde hair falling short of his shoulders and tickling my own. 

if i'd have been breathing, i would have classed it as a nuzzle.

but no thought ran through my head as a large hand wrapped dangerously around my wrist and i'm yanked with the momentum of a ten story building that's about to crash, to the floor. 

i'm pinned, no where to run. 

the grass is heavenly on this side of the tree.

his nails, grown since the last time i'd seen him, dig into me and god it feels good, if i was restless enough and possessed the oxygen i would have wrestled him to tuck away the trickles of his locks that fell as small waterfalls before the gorge of his umber eyes.

the reflection of my fairylights i had hung around the trunk cast a glimmer in them, his orbs often intimidated infinity and the stars of the universe. taehyung breathed the way that planets were born, so fast, so true and with enough momentum to birth a small galaxy. he breathed just for the purpose, and i hated things with purpose- but when taehyung did it, i didn't fear that what he was doing was right.

so i breathe too.

i breathe just enough, before the wind is knocked from me again at his laugh.

taehyung's laugh was how i ought the world to be. it rings with a melody of the four seasons and the narrative of the seven oceans. his corners of his eyes crease like intertwining mountain ranges, cheeks full and ready for touch. he breaths in my ear, chuckles rumbling like a detonation through the canal of my mind. in my head he owns a whole gallery, and this moment has its own exhibit.

"jeongguk." he says. he says it so quietly. like i'm the only person in the country that's meant to hear it. he looks into my eyes and i swear i see the purgatory, heaven and hell and something between the three. my mind is spinning like a cyclic song, a tornado of desire and lack of words to illustrate myself. "jeongguk." he says again, even quieter than before, but i hear it as a thunderclap, waves crashing against cliffs.

a smile plays on his full, vermillion lips and he's watching me. watching my eyes, watching the way i don't dare squirm and give him what he wants. 

"whatya doin' back there peepin' tom?" he teases. i notice he's chewing gum. pink and sliding from cheek to cheek. the urge to share his gum dwells on my mind but air doesn't.

and then i remember i should probably take another breath.

but if i took a breath it would look like a sigh and god forbid he finds out i'm fed up with him. so i try not to die.

i try not to die because i want to see what kim taehyung does next.

"you look stinkin' different, mate." he whispers, as a matter of realisation. his eyes narrow as he tries to pin point whats so different about me. i pray he notices everything and simultaneously nothing. "did you cut your hair?" 

his hands are in my hair now. tugging and pulling and stroking. 

he tilts his head in confusion, staring at me like its only been a few hours since he's seen me and not a year. 

there's murder on my mind because if he keeps looking at me like that- i just might have to kiss the life out of him. 

and before i know it, he's pulling me to my feet. 

"c'mon. don't just stand there like a lemon, gguk," he says, exasperated. as though it hasn't been a year since we'd last exchanged words. like it hasn't been nights i'd stared at his text and had wondered if i had made up what had happened between us that rainy night on the eve of september. 

he talks to me like i've known him for my whole life and my previous one too. he tells me to stand up with the certainty that he knows we'll be close in my next one. i wonder if i am the mistake. if i am a problem. his hand is distracting, fingers closed around my wrist like, in fact, that he owns me.

i let him hold me the way he wants to because its always just been us.

its always just been him that cradles me the way he pleases. he always grabs and pushes me in the way that he needs me to go and i, without hesitation, let him. because trust was something i scarcely gave out. and he had the delight of having mine.

 his flaxen hair dissipates in the space between us as he swirls on his heel, my arm is pulled in the direction of the curtains of the willow that we knew to be the exit into the real world outside. 

but i don't move.

taehyung stops. he notices i'm frozen to the ground and my legs are incapable of kinesis.

i hang my head low so he doesn't see the feverish glow on my cheeks. there's heat creeping stealthily up the canvas of my neck, i hope he fails to see the drooping of my shoulders. i'm not shy, kim taehyung is just terribly bold.

he smells like oranges. there's a small bracelet adorning his wrist that i transfix my gaze to, daring not to look him in the eye because i just know that i might say something i will hate myself for later. 

"hey." he calls. "you coming? my suitcases won't carry themselves y'know." he dips his head to capture my wandering eyes, i try my best to say something back. but words are foreign and the dictionary of my mind is slumbering. 

"you have arms. use them." i let out. my throat is hoarse from underuse this summer, i lock myself in my room most of the days for peace of mind. but sleeping top and tail with taehyung would change that.

taehyung lets go of my hand and an exquisite grin adorns his face. i've said something right, certainly, because his smile makes my insides erupt into a thousand fireworks that start a chain reaction, that sets of a torpedo, that brings down a volcano, that wipes out the world. and it was only one in the afternoon.

taehyung had that effect. 

i feel myself unable to even function, taken aback by the silhouette of his true beauty.

lord. i am in love.

i hope i discover the day.

it stops being a cause for concern.

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okay so this is a rlly slowwww but i promise you that it will be toe curling by the end. i had so much fun with this chapter omg, i also love jungkook's chracter?? he's such a deep thinker for what lol 

(also this has not been proofread so excuse the grammar i actually cba to fix it)

and we'll be getting tae's pov in a couple of chappies so i get to mix it up a bit! but tysm for the support loves, pls vote/ comment. <3

- varsha