Chapter Text
Jeongguk is holding him in his arms.
He is soft, warm, lined against the front of Jeongguk’s body. His arms are around him. Sometimes Jeongguk will whisper something soothing. He will sing a tune. If Taehyung were alone he would perhaps turn on some music.
But he isn’t alone.
So mostly, they lie in soft silence. Only their breaths and whispers disturb it, the mattress underneath them as they shift, his palm sliding over it. The faint city sounds from out the window, daylight pouring in.
There are days like these.
Normally, if they’re even holding each other in sleep, Jeongguk is the little spoon. But today is different. And Jeongguk holds him just as gladly as he is happy when he’s held — tightly, or very, very gently. His breath lands on Taehyung’s nape, and Jeongguk leaves kisses there. Down to the top of his spine, the golden skin revealed across his shoulders blades, right above where his shirt starts. Jeongguk kisses him there. He’d kiss him everywhere.
“I love you.”
He slides his palm against the front of Taehyung’s shirt, soft, cotton.
Taehyung lets out a breath from his nostrils, his hair moving in front of Jeongguk’s face and tickling his cheeks as he burrows his head deeper into the mattress.
Jeongguk holds him tighter. Still gentle. He’ll transport his love from his fingertips, his own skin where it touches Taehyung’s, onto every little atom that makes him. Every little piece, so he feels it everywhere. In every breath. He finds the top of his hand, and he strokes the skin there with his fingers, lovingly.
This is one afternoon of the rest of their lives together. The pale sunlight floods in through the window, catches Taehyung's hair. Jeongguk kisses it. The sun that meets his lips when he does. His scent in Jeongguk’s nose. I love you, I love you. If anything, Jeongguk has to hold back from telling him constantly. He’s afraid he’ll stop believing it. He’s afraid it will lose its meaning. He’s afraid, he doesn’t want him to feel suffocated or overflowed by love. Maybe it’s not meant to be about Jeongguk’s love for him all the time. How Jeongguk feels. Maybe it’s also supposed to be about him. On his own, too.
But when Jeongguk lies with him like this, he never wants to let go. Not even for a day. Not even for a minute.
Money isn’t a problem for Taehyung, and for that, Jeongguk is thankful. It’s one thing less to worry about. He knows that Taehyung is trying hard enough as it is. It could be good for him, though, to have something more… substantial, to fill his days with. Of course, he has the garden he takes care of. Himself and his thoughts to work on and with. His mother to care for. He’s so good with Jeongha, and spends more time with her than Jeongguk sometimes. He even goes on his own to spend time with her and Yerim on some days when Jeongguk is busy. Yerim and Taehyung are good friends as ever. Some things in the world are gentle and forgiving, and Jeongguk is glad when Taehyung gets to see that.
It’s not up to Jeongguk to decide anything for Taehyung, to make his choices when they’ve already been taken from all of his life.
But maybe he can give him more. Show him. More of life. Make him see the possibilities he contains. His potential. He is already beautiful as he is. Jeongguk only wants him to smile more often. And maybe a part of him still wants to save him from his tower.
Over time, though, Taehyung has started to smile again. It’s not as rare anymore. That smile that spreads over his face like wings. When it comes out, finds a way to break out across his cheeks, it’s real. Glowing. He is not broken.
Still, he feels so delicate in Jeongguk’s arms now, and Jeongguk debates in his head whether he should bring up the thing he’s been pondering in his head all day whether to bring it up. He doesn’t know if now is a good time. It might not be. There is only one way to learn, though. What Taehyung needs, what he can handle, times like these. Jeongguk has to test the limits to find them.
He brings the hand resting over Taehyung’s chest to the top of his head, bundling his fingers into his hair, scratching his scalp ever so gently. Taehyung stirs, something unsettled despite the heaviness in his body. Jeongguk reaches forward to kiss the lobe of his ear, “Honey?”
Taehyung nods, letting out a long exhale. Jeongguk can see his eyelashes flutter.
“Jeongguk.”
He says his name like it’s a weight. A weight, but not like baggage. It’s something else. He says his name like it’s an anchor.
He says his name like relief. He says it like he’s known him from the beginning to the end. Like he has always known him and always will know him.
The sunlight floods the walls of the room and the sheets and pillows on the bed, shines on his hair and his temple. His knees are bent up against his stomach, curled into a ball, and they lie in that stillness.
Jeongguk’s fingers trace a line down the top vertebra of his neck, and he breathes another kiss there. He thinks he can feel him shiver. He hugs him tighter.
“Appa called me,” Jeongguk says with a low voice, to not disturb the calm. Taehyung tenses up only a little, but Jeongguk feels it all over, against him. Maybe he should wait. But he’s not bringing bad news. He thinks maybe it could cheer him up. So he continues, cautiously.
“He invited us home over Christmas.” He pauses, waits. Taehyung doesn’t move, doesn’t even show he’s listening. So Jeongguk finishes, “All of us.”
Taehyung says nothing, and maybe he really wasn't listening. It doesn’t matter. It’s not important to ask him now. And if Taehyung wants to never go anywhere for the next ten years, Jeongguk will be patiently waiting by his side until he is ready. And if he never is, it won’t matter. He’ll wait. He will stay by his side.
“‘All of us’?” Taehyung repeats hoarsely after a silent moment. Jeongguk smiles.
“Yeah,” he nods. “Jeongja, of course. Jeongha. Yeri, too. I don’t know if she has a new boyfriend but I’m sure he could come too if she does.” He laughs for a little bit, but falls silent when Taehyung doesn’t.
“Your family,” Taehyung whispers, nearly not audible. Jeongguk reaches over and covers his hands with his. His fingers fall into the space between his, and he folds them together, pressing down, into his stomach.
“It’s your family too,” he says silently but firmly. “Taehyung.”
Taehyung doesn’t answer. He is looking ahead at something, maybe nothing. There’s nothing there but the white paint on the wall, blank but for one art piece Taehyung purchased and then tried to return but wasn’t allowed. He almost gave it away but Jeongguk stopped him. I like it. Don’t you like it? he asked. I mean, you bought it, right?
Taehyung had only stared at him, then the painting.
I don’t know, he said. But if you like it, we can keep it.
Jeongguk tries to sit up without letting go of him or his hand. He shuffles to lean onto his left elbow, looking down at his profile. His eyes are open, unseeing. “Tae,” Jeongguk whispers.
Taehyung doesn’t let go of his hand. On some days, that’s all Jeongguk can ask of him.
But today is not like that. Eventually – finally – Taehyung turns over, rolls onto his back. And his eyes are glimmering. And he’s so beautiful. Jeongguk feels his heart squeeze hotly inside his chest, and the smile spills out over his lips like an inevitable reaction, like a candle wick touched by a struck match.
He is so warm. Jeongguk wonders if he knows the comfort he brings Jeongguk, too.
He hopes he does.
His eyes are glimmering as they look up at him. There’s tiny crinkles around them. He nods, once, folding his chin in towards his chest.
“I’d like that,” Taehyung whispers. He pauses, hesitating. His eyes flick to the window, the source of all light. “Not for too long, though. I don’t want eomma to be lonely,” he says.
“Well, she could come?”
Taehyung’s eyes go back to him, sweeping over him. He blinks slowly, the features of his face flat, listless. The grip of Jeongguk’s hand slowly detaches as Taehyung moves his hand away, pushing himself a few inches closer to the edge of the bed.
“Yeah? And Sooyoung too? Should I invite her as well?”
Jeongguk’s taken aback by his sharp, icy tone. He opens his mouth but doesn’t know what to say. He closes it again, worry lines around it as he squeezes it shut.
Taehyung’s eyes soften.
“Eomma loves me, she loves you. But that doesn’t mean she… She wouldn’t find it appropriate.”
Jeongguk nods readily, not wanting to argue. That’s the last thing Taehyung needs.
“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says. Jeongguk blinks at him. Blinks for a few moments, frowning.
“You don’t have to say sorry,” he breathes, but his hands have stopped touching him, stopped soothing him.
Taehyung smiles. He smiles, and a warm feeling washes over Jeongguk, relieving him on the inside too.
“I am sorry,” he says, and his hand finds Jeongguk’s fallen hand on the sheet again, and reconnects with it. This time both palms are touching, and Jeongguk is so sensitive there, a shiver runs down his spine, and his arms jerk on his sides, mouth opening, breathless. Taehyung smiles, taps the back of his hand three times with his index finger, like some kind of signal. He lets it stay there after the last tap. “You’re wonderful.”
For the third time, Jeongguk is taken aback. More and more, he’s started expressing himself, but Jeongguk is still not used to Taehyung being so vocal. It’s almost painful. The beating ache against his ribcage, and he swallows.
“I’m okay,” Jeongguk tries to joke and smiles, but he has to squeeze his eyebrows tight together to keep his eyes open and dry.
“Thank you,” Taehyung says then, instead. A new, unfamiliar glint gleams in his eyes, and Jeongguk thinks his hand in Taehyung’s is kind of shaking. If he is Taehyung’s anchor, he is strikingly unstable. But Taehyung holds his hand and draws patterns on the flat of his palm so it tickles, and Jeongguk’s has to hold his tongue so as not to squeal. He seems to notice, and instead lifts their joint fingers to his lips, kissing Jeongguk’s knuckles.
Taehyung sighs. His smile is still there, soft, melting into the sunlight glow shaping his cheeks. He reaches out his free hand to brush his fingers through Jeongguk’s hair.
The glint is not really that new or unfamiliar. It’s the same one that’s always been there, it’s just… different. Less afraid. Less ashamed.
The warmest part of Taehyung is inside his eyes, when looking at him.
“I love you too,” he says.
❄️❄️❄️
The Christmas and fairy lights space out and dwindle this far out from any city. They drive up to park at the dusty dirt road outside the house. When the car stills and Jeongguk turns the engine off, neither makes any indication that they're getting out the car. Instead Taehyung seems to sink deeper into the cushion of the seat beside Jeongguk in the front seat, lips parted to exhale.
Jeongguk looks out the windows, but not much is different from last time he was here, or even twenty years ago. Not much has changed here, at least not on the surface. And Jeongguk feels that sting in his heart, the one that needs balm and tears as remedy, that lump in his tightening throat. He tries to breathe, tries to feel her presence even now, even after she’s moved on to the other world. He tries to, but one glance Taehyung’s way and he realizes he needs the remedy of his grief being seen by the person who holds his heart closest, too. At least just once.
“Jeongguk-ah?”
Jeongguk bites down on his lip, as Taehyung leans forward and out of the seat like it’s no longer pulling him in.
His fingers come up, cupping his face, thumbing at his cheekbones right beneath his eyes. The tips of his fingers are cold from the winter seeping through the metal and windows of the car.
“Baby, breathe.”
Jeongguk closes his eyes, and does as he says. He sucks in air through his nose, then lets it fill his chest and belly, before he exhales slowly. He does this a few times.
When he opens his eyes again, Jeongguk manages to smile.
“‘s been years since you called me that,” he whispers. And maybe that had helped. His chest still pains him but he breathes through it, something gooey next to the hollow in his stomach.
Taehyung just lets out a sharp breath. His eyes are focused so hard on Jeongguk that Jeongguk thinks he’ll start to cry in front of him. “Has it?”
Jeongguk looks down, something cold and burning flaring up his sinuses like a brain freeze, and he scrunches his nose as he tries to hold the tears in. Taehyung puts a hand behind his head and pulls him in against him. Jeongguk drops against the arm of his wool coat, sticky in his face, but warm, and close to him, Jeongguk feels better even as the first tears drip past his eyelids.
Taehyung puts his arms around him, kissing the top of his head. These open acts of affection still leave Jeongguk caught off guard, he almost forgets he is crying. His heart slams confused and hot and heavily.
“Come on,” Jeongguk says at last, parting from him a tiny bit, Taehyung’s hands resting on his back. The car gets colder every minute they remain here. “Appa must’ve heard us come, he’s probably wondering what’s taking so long.” He’s sniffling as he speaks, and Taehyung puts a few fingers under Jeongguk’s chin, bringing him in again. He only leaves a peck, but it’s enough for the last frost to melt inside him.
Taehyung brushes the tears lining his cheeks away with his thumbs, a small, soft smile sitting on his lips. “You can feel her, right?" He tips his head slightly. "Your mom?"
Jeongguk nods, eyebrows pinched together in a devastated second, as he looks down between them. The car is dark, the only light is coming from the house and the snow that lights up the night.
“Everywhere, hyung,” he says, feeling broken for a second. He thinks he sounds broken too.
“Because she is,” Taehyung says. He puts one hand off Jeongguk’s back to place it on top of his heart instead. “That’s why you can feel her.”
“It hurts so much.”
Taehyung nods. His own eyes look pained for a moment.
“I know,” he just says.
“But she is gone, Taehyung.” Jeongguk whispers. “It wouldn’t hurt if she wasn’t.”
Taehyung nods shortly. “Maybe,” he admits quietly.
They ease off each other and out of the car, Taehyung waiting on the other side of it until Jeongguk comes over to him, walking towards the porch together. Jeongguk rests his head on Taehyung’s shoulder just for a moment.
Maybe he shouldn’t have said that about his mother being gone considering Taehyung is still grieving his father. But Jeongguk feels the gap of her presence so excruciatingly tonight, he doesn’t think he could have kept it inside. It’s not his first time being back here since after she passed, but that doesn’t matter. Tonight it just hit him. Every time he comes here again, she still will not be here. And Jeongguk can still feel her in every part of this place, home being here and her embrace, the two can’t really be separated. But cruelly enough, she has been severed from this world and this place and from Jeongguk. He doesn’t think he really understood it until now, with everything that’s been going on. He’s been okay because Taehyung hasn’t been. He’s been grieving only sporadically because his daughter needs a father who isn’t grieving.
So when the door opens and his father stands there, Jeongguk kind of breaks. He has a foggy memory of crying with his father over her those weeks in spring, and thought it had healed him. Now he sees the eyes of his father and realizes that mourning is ongoing. Because her death is not only ongoing, but forever. The same dark place he and everyone he loves one day will enter. And Jeongguk nearly slips from his steps into his father’s arms. Taehyung stands behind him, his hand on his shoulder, and Jeongguk has stopped crying, and Taehyung kissed him, but the relief to the fear he feels is nowhere to be found.
“Appa,” Jeongguk chokes.
He feels his father’s arms tighten around him, like his son has finally arrived home.
Jeongguk sleeps in his old, creaky bed and Taehyung presses on his side, head resting on top of his chest before Jeongguk moves to lie onto his stomach. In the darkness he feels Taehyung’s head dip against his shoulder, lying on his side, and giving Jeongguk the room he needs, but the bed is too small for them to not be lying compactly pressed together.
When he wakes up though, Taehyung isn’t there. The branches of the forest trees brush against his window, and the sun can be seen kissing the frozen tree tops but right past Jeongguk’s window, leaving the room shadowy.
He closes his eyes and listens to the silence for a moment. In it, though, he hears things. Voices, laughter. Footsteps. A car door closing, then a car engine and wheels as they push the frost covered gravel away.
The room feels cold, but in a nice way. Refreshing, awakening. He pushes himself up off the bed and digs out a sweater from his suitcase. He puts on pajama pants too, ones he didn’t wear as he slept. A pair of woolen socks, too, that Cha Miyoung gifted him on his birthday.
After visiting the bathroom, he walks down the stairs with light steps, hearing the sounds more clearly now. Still, the sight that welcomes him as he reaches the end of the stairs and walks out into the kitchen stuns him for a moment. He opens his mouth, but then closes it again to smile.
It isn’t Taehyung who notices him first. He’s trying to make coffee, Jeongguk thinks, but he can’t be sure.
He sees her head whip towards him and then hears her big gasp.
“Appa!”
Taehyung looks his way too, and he grins. “Good morning,” he says, putting gentle fingers around Jeongha’s wrist, to wave her hand for her. She’s gotten heavier, but Taehyung carries her with ease. He’s gotten stronger, too.
Jeongguk looks around, but no one else is there.
“They went into town,” Taehyung explains, his brown eyes warm in the winter morning light. “I’m making hot chocolate,” he then says, but even he looks doubtful about it.
To town, huh. Yerim must have arrived with Jeongha sometime after Jeongguk went to bed. Jeongja was home when they arrived yesterday, she must have seen the change in Jeongguk’s eyes.
Jeongguk walks over to them, and Taehyung raises his daughter with a steady grip, giving her to him. Jeongguk smiles brightly and so does she, and he holds her close against himself, her head against his neck.
“Hi, baby,” he says to her, as Taehyung turns back to the stove, scratching his head, hands unsure.
“Appa! Appa, appa, appa–”
She speaks, though with not that great variation of her words. She’s still learning, and Jeongguk is happy she is so vocal. She’s been that from day one. Jeongguk rocks her gently to try and calm her, but he knows what his own mother used to say about him as a kid. He was impossible to calm down when he got going.
But then, there is more than Jeongguk in her.
“Yeri too?” He asks Taehyung over her head.
“Hm? Oh, yes. Jeongja, abeonim, Yerim.”
Jeongguk huffs. “Appa, too?”
“Appa! Appa–” Jeongha squeals happily.
Taehyung nods, turning towards him, hands dropping to his side as he leans against the counter instead.
Jeongguk meets his eyes and smiles. “Did you sleep well?”
He nods, though Jeongguk isn’t so sure that’s the case. Taehyung counters, “And you? How are you feeling?”
Jeongguk nods, eyes dropping to the floor for a moment. “I’m okay,” he answers.
Taehyung finds his eyes again. Pulls them towards himself, same thing he’s always done.
“ Eoommaaaa… ” Jeongha says, seemingly to herself. She’s trying to reach for the golden necklace around Taehyung’s neck.
“Eomma will be here soon,” Jeongguk whispers to her, patting her head, the fine black hairs that are growing out. “Appa’s here.” He blinks away the tears that well up, furrowing his brows.
Taehyung takes her back when Jeongguk gives her to him, hugging him briefly in passing before shoving him gently from the stove and taking his place. He puts away the things Taehyung’s started on, and starts making hot cocoa for him.
Taehyung walks over to the window, where Jeongha wants to be put down. Some toys have already been spread out on the floor, and she becomes fully engrossed by what she’s doing, playing by herself in her own little world. Taehyung comes back to him.
He hugs him from behind, longer this time. He kisses his cheek, tucks back some hair. He rests his head on Jeongguk’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” Jeongguk says to him quietly. “Hmm?” Taehyung hums. The flat of his palm cups his waist, almost reaching across his belly to the other side.
“About mom being gone.”
Taehyung stops in his tracks for just a second. Then he breathes out against Jeongguk’s neck. “You don’t have to apologize for that. It’s what you felt.”
“I’m sorry I said it to you . It must’ve… it must’ve hurt.”
“Of course it hurts. But not because of what you said. Not because we talk about things. Say them. That’s not what hurts.”
Jeongguk grins suddenly, twirling around as he wipes the last remnants of his tears away. “You’ve become so wise,” he fawns, clasping their lips together gently in a kiss he can’t resist. The great privilege of being able to kiss him anytime he wants is indescribable, and he will never take it for granted, never waste it.
“Mmm.” Taehyung smiles. “Is something burning?” he asks then. Jeongguk stares at him wide-eyed. He twists around. No, the chocolate is fine.
“Ah, just my heart for you then,” Taehyung says, and Jeongguk pushes a hand against his chest, “And so cheesy, too,” he whines, but he knows his eyes are twinkling. Taehyung kisses him again, fingers cupping his chin. Jeongguk can feel his stubble against his skin.
He’s so caught up he doesn’t hear her tiny steps running up to them at first. And for a moment he worries he’s behaving inappropriately, and nearly pushes Taehyung off him into the table. He turns to her approaching figure, and drops onto his knees to meet her. She runs straight into his arms. “Ap- appa !” she exclaims, out of breath. She’s holding something important out to him, a plastic horse.
He feels Taehyung’s deft fingers running through his hair, straightening out the strands.
Her eyes are bright and shining and Jeongguk can’t thank the universe enough for the fact that his mom got to see her before she left.
He looks up to Taehyung as she becomes distracted again.
He sees the pain in his eyes and he sees the love. The two almost look inseparable from each other. Jeongguk can’t erase the past. He can’t bring his mother back to himself, or Taehyung’s father to him. He can’t make anything undone.
But he can learn to let go of it. He has to. For Taehyung, if nothing else.
“Taehyung,” he hears himself whisper. “I’m scared.”
Taehyung closes his eyes for a few seconds before opening them again, like he understands. He comes down to knee level, crouching beside the two of them. Jeongha takes the opportunity to climb onto his lap. She’s so much bigger than when Taehyung first saw her. And she will grow up alongside them, in front of them. With them. One day they won’t be so young.
Everything is scary.
He may have finally gotten him in the end, but one day everything will leave him, even life. Even Taehyung. He can’t bear the thought. That he’ll be entirely alone.
“Why, love?”
Jeongguk shivers, a wave running through him, crashing. He shakes his head. “Of dying. Or, death. You can’t leave me, Taehyung,” he whispers hurriedly, frightfully. Taehyung’s soft warm eyes soften.
“I don’t want to die. I don’t think I can do it.”
Taehyung looks at him softly for a long moment. The air feels present with life, vibrating and so, so frail. Jeongha’s eyes are aimed outside the window, at the snowflakes falling that Jeongguk hasn’t noticed yet.
Eventually Taehyung says, “I think. If humans weren’t equipped to die, we wouldn’t have gotten life in the first place.”
The words settle between them.
“You’re breaking my heart,” Jeongguk whispers. Every second. For every moment he loves him, which is always.
Taehyung nods. “That’s love.”
It’s too much, and Jeongguk can’t blink all the tears away, a few slip out and trail his cheeks.
Taehyung leans over and presses a soft kiss to his forehead. “I’m here now,” he says. “When else matters?”
Jeongguk almost sputters out a laugh, half-hysteric, half-endeared by his sweet words.
But he doesn’t. He nods, smiling. Jeongha pulls at the front of his shirt, attempts to point. She’s silent now, like she’s forgotten she can speak.
Taehyung gasps loudly for her sake, to make her happy, and Jeongguk follows his eyes out the window. There the snowflakes are twirling in the air from the sky, in endless patterns.
“Look at that,” Jeongguk says in a low voice to her. “It’s snowing, Jeongha. Snowing,” he repeats so she can repeat it.
“Yes, baby. Snow.”
He looks at Taehyung.
❄️❄️❄️
When the others come home, the snow has settled peacefully and white on the ground, and Jeongha seems to want to go out into it. Jeongguk hugs Yerim as hello while asking if there are any appropriate outerwear for her to do that. Yerim nods, says she will go find it.
“You look well, Yeri,” Jeongguk says when parting, putting her at some distance to take her in.
She smiles, face saying of course I do. She graciously pushes a hand through her hair fanning out along her shoulders. It’s shorter now than before. It suits her.
“Oppa!” she then greets Taehyung, almost overly cheerful. “How are you? You look well!” she says, and Jeongguk is so happy because she is right.
Jeongguk’s father is behind, wearing that small smile of his that doesn’t always reach the eyes. He nods to Jeongguk, then Taehyung, then he goes into another room.
Jeongja comes in a while after them, cheeks ruddy and soft melted snowflakes making her skin dewy. She smiles brightly when she sees them, but her smile is shaky when it passes over Yerim. She might feel uncomfortable with so many people and especially with the same people’s complicated history. She also doesn’t know Yerim so well, and she’s always been a bit awkward around new people. Jeongguk is the same but he has more practice.
“We went to get food,” she says, and Jeongguk notices Yerim’s eyes flick to her. Jeongja stares back at her for a few seconds. She then coughs, very loud, and Yerim looks away and scurries off, presumably to look for Jeongha’s overall. “Yerim, ehm, wanted to see the town. We went to the temple.”
“How was it?” Jeongguk smiles at her.
“Oh! Great, uh–Good.” She says, her thin eyes widening as big as they go.
Then Taehyung starts to whistle as he exits the room, leaving them alone.
Jeongguk looks after him, then turns back to her with a suspicious face. “Yeah?” he asks. “Yeri liked it?”
Jeongja stares at him. “You still gonna call her that? She ain’t your wife anymore.”
Jeongguk blinks.
“Do you call her that in front of Taehyung too?” she asks him.
"What?"
Jeongja looks at the doorway Taehyung went through. Then eyes him with a pointed look. “Don’t act clueless.”
“I seriously doubt Taehyung cares what I call her?”
“Oh yeah? You already asked him, then? Relationships, Jeongguk.” She hits her knuckles to his temple. “They don’t work by just assuming you know everything about your partner.”
Jeongguk narrows his eyes, crossing his arms in front of his chest defensively. “Yeah, because you know so much about relationships, do you, noona?”
Jeongja puts her shopping bags down, as if accepting they’re having a discussion now. She folds her arms, mirroring her brother with a sardonic smile. “Well we both know how your last one went.”
Knowing that they are standing in the middle of the hallway, where anyone could cross or overhear, Jeongguk walks closer to the wall and lowers his voice.
“What exactly are you saying to me?”
“I’m saying this is not an uncomplicated situation, Jeongguk, as much as you may want it to be. You should be mindful of that. That’s all.” She picks up the bags again, and walks away.
The snow crunches softly beneath their boots as they run into it.
Unfortunately all Jeongha wants to do is eat the snow, so they have to keep her vigilant supervision. Yerim is wearing a cute scarf, mittens and earmuffs. She is hesitant at first, but it doesn’t take long before she’s lying down in the snow, making snow angels. Jeongguk is trying to get Jeongha to play with the snow with him, not just consume it.
After a while Jeongja enters the porch, wearing only a light jacket. She has brought her digital camera, and takes photographs of the family playing in the snow. She waves to Yerim, and Yerim sits up, posing. Jeongguk furrows his brows, looking between them – they were so awkward just now – but then gets busy having to gently pry more snow out of Jeongha’s little mouth.
“Jeongguk, Jeongha, come here,” Yerim says from the corner of her mouth, smiling with her eyes to the camera, not wanting to move now that she’s settled into her best pose. Jeongguk lifts Jeongha up in his arms and shuffles over, leaving marks in the glittering snow, and sits beside Yerim. They smile as Jeongja takes a photo. Jeongja seems to not think any harder about Jeongguk’s supposedly complicated situation, and in fact, is barely looking at him.
She’s looking at Yerim, who is taking Jeongha from Jeongguk and bops her reddening nose. A sweet laughter bubbles out of Jeongha’s throat, and it makes for the perfect picture. The three of them, playing in the bright snow together. Even Jeongja seems to think so. Her jacket blows open in the wind, and she goes inside after she’s taken enough photos. Jeongguk is grateful for her. He knows he will appreciate it in the future.
Taehyung is nowhere to be seen, and Jeongguk assumes he’s using the opportunity to spend some quality bonding time with Jeongguk’s father.
It’s already started getting dark outside when after going back inside, Jeongja and Jeongguk sit tucked under a blanket in front of the fire, going through an old photo album with pictures of their mom.
“She looks so pretty here,” Jeongja says. Their mom, photographed by their father, as is scribbled in one corner.
“She looks like you,” Jeongguk comments. Jeongja deadpans him.
“Let me see!” Yerim exclaims from where she’s sitting with Jeongha in front of the fire, trying to braid their daughter’s hair, Jeongha being very sleepy, eyelids drooping. Jeongguk passes the album to her, and Yerim makes a high pitched sound.
“Oh, she does!” Yerim agrees excitedly. “You’re just as pretty,” she adds with a quieter voice.
Jeongja flushes dark red. It surprises Jeongguk as Jeongja goes through most of her life unaffected. She is his stable rock, never moving. So this is new.
“I do not look like eomeoni,” Jeongja says quietly. “If anyone does, it’s you Jeongguk, or even Jeongha. I just look...” She grimaces. "Like me."
“What do you mean,” Yerim pouts at her, giving Jeongguk the book back. Jeongha makes a sound in her sleep. The fire crackles, casting Yerim in a warm glow. Her eyes look sincere as she straightens her face, looking – or at least trying to – Jeongja in the eye. “You’re so pretty, unnie.”
Jeongja sits there and gapes for a while. She practically seems to have malfunctioned. Jeongguk pretends not to notice and turns over another page of the photo album.
“Have you bought a gift for Taehyung yet, Jeongguk? His birthday is coming up.” Yerim says then after a moment.
Jeongguk grins. “Of course I have.”
“What did you get?”
“An art piece.” He smiles. “I bought it from a gallery we visited. Our walls at home are way too bare. And he definitely liked it, but I don’t know, he probably thought it was too expensive and wasteful to splurge on. I don’t care though,” he says, leaning back against the fabric of the couch with a wistful smile, eyes certainly honey-glazed. “Not when it’s for him. I’ll buy him anything.”
Yerim shrieks out a laugh, raising her arms as if to shield herself from his sappiness. “As long as you keep paying child support,” she giggles.
“I’ll just make him pay it,” Jeongguk giggles back. Jeongja looks between both of them doubtfully. See – all is well, nothing is complicated. They were always better as friends anyway.
It’s only later that Taehyung enters the house, and yes, with Jeongguk’s father in tow.
They’re speaking to each other in low mumbles, awakening Jeongguk’s curiosity. He looks up from where he’s sitting right in front of the fire now, feeding it. It’s bursting into orange and blue centered flames, heat washing over him. He shuts the tiny door to keep the core of it protected and warm. Oxygen pours in through the gaps, a whisk of wind forcing more light and heat out of the crackling, blackening wood.
Jeongguk turns towards the voices, seeing Taehyung come into the room with a tiny yawn. His eyes are alight and sharp, nearly foxy, the way he can get when he is on his cleverest, or cheekiest, behavior. Jeongguk smiles. He thinks he likes that Taehyung would humor his dad all day like this, whatever they’ve been doing. There’s some black smudge on Taehyung’s red and frozen fingertips, and Jeongguk also worries. He doesn’t look like he’s freezing, though.
“Taehyungie could be a damn good mechanic one day, I’m telling you all,” Jeongguk’s father says. It makes Jeongguk burst into laughter that he tries to stifle because he doesn’t want to ruin anything Taehyung has accomplished with his father today. He’s so happy. He’s so happy that Taehyung would do this, be the perfect son in law for his sake. Oh, and how his eomma had adored him.
“Yeah?” Jeongguk can’t help but grin idiotically, creeping over his cheeks. “You like plows and tractors, Taehyung?”
Taehyung meets his eyes. His crinkled eyes are brighter than the snow outside. “Love them.” He raises his brows for effect, nods and grins. “Can’t get enough.” Jeongja looks up from her book, gauges his face, and chuckles. Yerim and Jeongha are in another room now, presumably in the guest bedroom where Yerim is staying.
Jeongguk calls for him.
“Come here, get closer to the fire”
Taehyung stops moving, strong and bold and proud and impressive, as if to not let anyone in the world see him weak or soft or anything like it.
Jeongguk does love him for it, for refusing shame, for shining his light over his home, for trying so hard to make Jeongguk’s dad proud and accepting and all those things. He does.
But he also wants Taehyung to feel safe enough to not have to always do that. Be that. He wants him to feel like he’s home, that he’s enough, with nothing to prove. All those things, too.
And he watches Taehyung hesitate with a glance at Jeongguk's father. But the old man is only walking towards either the kitchen or the stairs, not paying them much mind. And Jeongguk opens his arms, for Taehyung to melt in.
Taehyung steps towards him, towards the light of the fire. Almost shyly, he lowers down beside him, putting his hands against his shoulders.
Jeongguk turns his body, reaches for his cold hands, cups them into his own.
He brushes his fingers over them, down along to grasp around his slender wrist, directing his arms closer to the fireplace. Then he leans down, and breathes hot air from his own lungs over them, pours his inner heat from the center of his heart, his blood – before he presses warm kisses to his smooth, gentle knuckles, one by one, out to his fingertips, lovingly. And he swallows and kisses and chases the rigid, austere cold away.
❄️❄️❄️
The days home are slow, so different from the city. All of Jeongguk’s life, he believed this place would be there for him to return to, if he ever needed it. So there is something bittersweet about it now, knowing it won’t always be there. Knowing it isn’t theirs anymore. It is only out of kindness of the buyers, a Japanese Agricultural company, that Jeongguk’s father is allowed to stay here at all. Jeongja told him the details at midnight, when the house was quiet. Letting their father stay was part of the contract. The buyers were probably counting on his father to either pass away soon, or having to move to a home.
“When did you get so cynical?” Jeongja chided him when he said so. “You don’t want your daughter to grow up around that attitude. They just didn’t want to force an old man from his home during his last years.”
“Last years?” Jeongguk repeated, stomach turning. He really didn’t want to lose another parent anytime soon, preferably never. But Jeongja shook her head, hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with appa. He’s in good shape, don’t you think?” As much as Jeongguk didn’t want to admit it, it was true. Ever since their mother passed, he has had more energy. Taking care of their mother for so long had taken its toll on him, though the grief took another sort of toll on him, one that sits in his eyes now. Yet Jeongguk knows he would never think of her as a burden, that he’d take her back in a heartbeat. And Jeongguk would too.
“Hey,” she gently patted his cheek. “Don’t look so gloomy. We still have the cabin.”
Jungkook has cried about it a few times now. He’s glad they still have this place now. He wonders if he could make enough money in his life to buy it back someday. He wouldn’t touch Taehyung’s money for it. And he also has a kid to raise. Yeri’s got enough on her own but he really doesn’t want to compromise on being able to support both of them if it was needed. Same goes for Taehyung, and his father and sister, when he thinks about it.
And yet, he can’t help but dream. Letting go of this place is so hard. Part of it is how tied it is to his mother.
But he has to. Someday. It’s so hard.
“Hey,” Taehyung stands in the doorframe, a tentativeness to his way of standing, and Jeongguk shakes himself out of it. He’s sitting up again, looking at the glow of the snow from the window. “Are you coming to bed?”
His voice is like a warm waterfall cascading down his back, and he smiles.
“Yes, dear.”
It’s too dark to see his eyeroll. Their fingers intertwine seamlessly, and the stairs creak beneath their feet when they walk upstairs together. They enter Jeongguk’s old bedroom, where only the light from the bedside lamp is on, a soft yellow light embracing them as they lie down in the narrow bed together. Taehyung’s mouth covers his and Jeongguk gets lost in it.
“Do you wanna talk?”
“No,” Jeongguk breathes, almost a whimper because that is what Taehyung’s body on top of his does to him, “‘wanna not think,” he whispers. Taehyung draws his face back slightly, eyebrows raised.
“Here?” he asks, though there’s some kind of dark amusement in his eyes.
“Everyone’s asleep,” Jeongguk whispers back against his lips, inching forward. “Just be quiet.”
Taehyung takes his thigh in a firm grip in a sudden movement and a weak sound escapes from the back of Jeongguk’s throat. “I think you know it should be me telling that to you.” One side of his lips tips up, and Jeongguk feels his palms slide up his thighs.
“Game on,” Jeongguk grins.
Jeongja slams her breakfast bowl on the table in front of him. “I can’t believe you’re a bottom.”
Jeongguk chokes on his food.
“Actually, I can believe it. It’s just more than I ever needed to know. Or actually hear.”
It’s only the two of them in the kitchen, the sun blinding through the window.
“I’m not a bottom, just because I happened to bottom last night,” Jeongguk points out. Jeongja looks like she might actually cry.
“I pray to God appa didn’t hear you. It might have actually killed him. I’m sorry to say, but if he disowns you now, you only got yourself to blame. No Korean man in his late sixties can be expected to take hearing his only son– no, I can’t even say it." She squints at him. "I don't get it. Did you have temporary amnesia and forgot your sister sleeps wall-to-wall with you?”
Jungkook widens his eyes in fear. “You think appa heard me?”
Jeongja blinks at him tiredly, pushing her hair back over her shoulders, swallowing some juice.
“I tried to keep it down,” Jeongguk swallows. He had, and besides it was so late he didn’t think anyone was awake. Thank god Yeri stayed with Jeongha on the bottom floor.
There’s steps in the stairs at that moment, and both siblings’ eyes jerk towards it. Down comes their father, looking more good-humored and energized than usual.
“Ah, good morning children! Wow, I don’t think I have had a good rest like that since your mother left us. I always slept better with her here. Something about the house full,” he grins with a peaceful glint in his eyes. Jeongja proceeds to choke on her juice, snorting, though Jeongguk laughs out in relief.
“That’s great to hear appa! We’ll come over more often,” he promises.
“Spare us,” Jeongja says with her hand on her heart, gaze aimed at the ceiling. “Eomma, can you believe it?”
Their father steps towards them and ruffles Jeongguk’s hair affectionately. “Did you sleep well, son?”
“Never better,” he grins up at him, as Jeongja lets out a muffled cry. “Taehyung’s still asleep. He must be worn out.”
Jeongja gags. “Kill me.” Their father gives her a scolding look but she isn’t affected, just hides her face in her hands.
“What’s going on here?” Yeri enters the kitchen from the guest room, Jeongha at her hip, and Jeongguk opens his arms to take her and greet her good morning. Only his dad takes her first, and with his newfound vigor, he spins around with her while the rest of them blink in surprise.
Jeongja promptly clams up, spilling some juice on her white tee.
“You don’t wanna know,” Jeongguk laughs in answer to Yeri, leaning back in his chair. There’s a good ache in his backside. He repositions. Jeongja still looks like she might cry but is very silent now.
“Where’s Taehyung?” Yeri asks, putting some bread in the toaster.
“Asleep,” Jeongguk smiles.
“You know, I heard something strange last night. Sounded like… something knocking into the wall. It came from upstairs?” Yeri turns to look at him pointedly.
“I did not hear a thing,” Jeongguk’s father grins obliviously, and Yeri has to stop him from throwing Jeongha into the air. “Slept like a baby.”
“We’re mostly adults here,” Jeongguk yawns. “Noona's just uptight.”
“I’m not!” Jeongja exclaims before clamping her mouth shut again, looking mortified, cheeks flaming red.
They’re interrupted again, this time by Taehyung running down the bed, hair a mess, wearing shorts and Jeongguk’s shirt. He comes up to Jeongguk at once, placing a kiss on his forehead before wrapping his arms around him. “Good morning,” he says, announces it to the table. Jeongguk takes hold of his wrist with his hand to keep him there.
“Jeongja-yah, are you feeling okay?” Taehyung asks Jeongja then, sounding earnestly concerned, god bless him.
“She’s fine,” Jeongguk says to him softly. “I think I may have lost last night, babe.”
“Ah.” Taehyung at least has the decency to look embarrassed. He smiles though when he catches sight of Jeongha reaching for him with her chubby fingers, and takes her over from her grandfather, who now has to catch his breath against the sink and holding at a place on his back as he’s in pain. Jeongguk can relate. Okay, no. All of this is so inappropriate. But sort of funny too. It’s a relief to be able to laugh about something that once would have felt world-ending.
Jeongha touches Taehyung’s face happily as she chatters on about something. Yeri takes a seat next to Jeongja who stiffens. Jeongguk smiles. He turns to Taehyung, who meets his eyes.
Jeongguk reaches out his hand and thumbs at his lip, before kissing him there. “Good morning,” he whispers, and their noses brush. “Sleep well?”
Taehyung nods. Jeongha reaches for Jeongguk now, and he takes her in his lap, bouncing her lightly.
"Oh yeah?” Jeongguk says. “What'd you dream about?"
Taehyung’s smile is so pretty that Jeongguk thinks he might die.
“This," he whispers in his ear. He kisses the skin beneath it before turning back to the others.