Chapter Text
Jeongguk knew where his first love started. People always said they never knew, that it just happened one day, but Jeongguk knew. Knew every bit.
It was a late day in 2011, Jeongguk lounging across Seokjin’s legs, letting the older male comb through the knots in his messy teen hair. They were surrounded by musical instruments in this tiny, shivering garage, with the others spread out around them. Namjoon had left and came back with two guys— lavender-brown hair curled around one’s crown, eyes big and low, and the other with eyes that turn into tiny crescents, chocolate-brown piled on top of his head. Namjoon introduces them as “Taehyungie” and “Jiminie”, them smiling at the same time. Taehyung and Jimin, they came in a pair. They dispersed, lounging on the couch beside Jeongguk.
He buried his face in Seokjin’s lap, burning heat rising to his cheeks. The new brunette was small, cute, and had a nice laugh, but something about the one with the lavender hue made Jeongguk’s stomach flip. He couldn’t deduce why. He continued peeking up every once in a while to look at Taehyung, see the way his eyes crinkled and widened, the way his mouth pouted, listen to his voice and how words sounded rolling off of his tongue. It was a bit deeper than Jeongguks, which made him even shyer.
He felt Seokjin’s hands run through his hair, creating rows upon rows. He looked up at the older man, him laughing at the redness of Jeongguk’s cheeks. Namjoon asked what he was laughing at, but with one look at Jeongguk’s face, the big eyes and pleading and shaking his head, he knew.
“Nothing,” Seokjin smiled, “Jeongguk just looks cute sleepy.” He looked at him with a face that said ‘I got you.’ After Namjoon, Seokjin had to be his favorite hyung.
He felt so hot, so tingly, and something deep in his stomach swirled. Sure, he’d had crushes in both elementary and middle school, but nothing like this. Something deep had shifted inside of him, and there Taehyung sat, permanently in his heart.
So yeah, Jeongguk knew when his first love started. That hot, sweaty day when he met Taehyung, when he realized that this is what love feels like.
Jeongguk still felt childlike around Taehyung, though being a grade apart. He’d scratch under his chin, cooing at his cuteness. But Taehyung made Jeongguk want to feel like a man, like someone worthy of his love.
He carried this feeling for years, festering and fermenting until it was at the verge of exploding. Until the teasing about how cute he is and treating him like kid got too much. He prepared a whole speech, a whole spiel before Taehyung went off to college and left him. Forever it felt like. But it wasn’t forever—just four years in Paris.
Taehyung always talked about his dream— studying art in Paris— for years. It was so much that Jeongguk had saved a baguette next to his name in his phone (next to a white heart he’ll never see). It never felt real, and it never felt this close. Not until he burst into Namjoon’s apartment, heaving and sobbing with his laptop tucked under his arm. He had gotten accepted, an extremely prestigious school had accepted him to study. Jeongguk remembered holding him as he cried, choking out words he couldn’t understand. It was a bittersweet moment for the boy— he was so happy for Taehyung. His love following his dreams. But he was so sad, he won’t smell that coconut-vanilla that permeated his hair, feel those rough hands that spend hours on canvases, hear that sweet voice that laughed as Jeongguk complained about things Taehyung already experienced.
And suddenly, his age felt like the worst thing alive. Almost to graduation, the big seventeen, but he still felt so young. So not on Taehyung’s level.
So he stood there, at Taehyung’s going away party with people he’s never met, and stared. Watched how Taehyung interacted with everyone, how he swam through the room. Each person he reached, each drink he refilled, it made Jeongguk’s heart hurt. He caught him when he was alone, pulling him to a quiet bedroom.
They had sat on the bed beside each other, staring until one broke. Jeongguk opened his mouth to speak, to finally say what he wanted to say, but nothing came out. Instead, it was a choked sob, one that crumpled his whole body. He buried his face in Taehyung’s shoulder, whatever eyeliner he smudged on smudging in fine lines on his chubby cheeks. He heaved, attempting to catch his breath just to breathe in Taehyung’s scent, making everything worse. A warm hand pushed on his back, pressing Jeongguk into the warmth.
“My Jeonggukie’s gonna miss me, huh?” Taehyung asked, voice equally breaking. He rubbed his hand up and down his back, soothing him.
Jeongguk weakly nodded, “You’re leaving me.”
Taehyung laid his chin on Jeongguk’s crown, breathing in a scent vaguely close to baby powder, “I’m not leaving forever,” he mumbled, “you’ll see me again.”
“F… Feels like forever,” he choked, “like a lifetime.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Jeongguk continued choking back tears, muttering “I love you, I’m gonna miss you,” into Taehyung’s shoulder until he was lightheaded. He was tucked in Taehyung’s neat bed, coconut-vanilla flooding his nostrils and overwhelming him all over again. Before he drifted, he heard a faint “I love you too,” with warm lips touching his forehead and warm fingers brushing his hair back.
That was the last time he saw Taehyung in person. He refused to see him off, to watch him walk deeper and deeper into that airport until his frame disappeared. Jeongguk couldn’t bear it, he stayed in Taehyung’s bed until he couldn’t anymore, even if Namjoon tried to coax and sweet talk him out.
The tiny bear stuffie Taehyung had slipped into his arms before he left, doused with his cologne, was the only thing that kept him going through that dreadful summer.
(When Jeongguk looks back, he was very dramatic about the whole thing. But what is being a teenager if you’re not dramatizing your life?)
It had been four years since then. Without Taehyung, Jeongguk had built a tiny life for himself at this art school. At around the three-four year mark, they had stopped talking. The group chat was active, as always, but he never texted one-on-one. It hurt, stung so bad Jeongguk decided to just… stop reaching out. He knew that there would always be a place in his heart for Taehyung, but this was enough moping. He’d had enough of his own sorrow– endlessly missing a boy that was probably in clubs smoking brands of cigarettes he couldn’t pronounce.
He had made his own little group of friends, people that would choose him and he’d choose them back. Nights that blurred into each other that consisted of green bottles and snacks sprawled across coffee tables and laughter burned into his brain. He’d even had a few flings, situationships, hook-ups– whatever term people used nowadays. The fire in his heart didn’t burn as bright for these people as it did for Taehyung, but the flame was still lit. That was enough, right?
(Late at night, in the aftermath of someone laying beside him in bed, he’d think about Taehyung. If he was hooking up with Parisians and thinking of him after, or if he was thinking of him at all after. Guilt stirred deep in Jeongguk’s stomach, which he was able to push away after a slight swig of Soju, burning feeling masking everything.)
He’d rather be dragged out by his friends then sit cooped up in his tiny apartment, alone with his thoughts. Which is why, after a grueling class and before they had to return to their respective studios, they all sat in the quad. Six of them, taking up the picnic table like they owned it. Loud chatter that reminded him of his boys, his six that he grew up with. He felt comfortable enough to rest his head on his hands, zoning out with all of the chatter around him. He felt a stare on his forehead and when he refocused, it was Jaehyun.
His thick eyebrows were scrunched together, messy honey-colored hair brushed past his forehead. He kept glancing at Jeongguk, back behind him, then back to Jeongguk.
Jeongguk scrunched his own eyebrows, “What?”
“There’s someone that looks so confused,” Jaehyun laughed, “and they keep looking at you.”
“What do they look like?” Jeongguk leaned forward, staring at Jaehyun’s face until the boy smiled, “I could have a secret admirer.”
Jaehyun laughed harder at that, “No, they’re, like, staring. Seems like they know you.”
Maybe it was Yoongi– he’d left a couple trinkets at his apartment, maybe the boy wanted to be nice and return it to him. Or maybe it was Namjoon, coming to retrieve the stolen jacket Jeongguk was currently wearing. It fit nice, and it smelled like him! God forbid a guy miss his friends a little. He clutched the sleeves tighter around him, hoping to soak in more warmth. Or maybe, deep down in his heart, it was Jimin. The man had come to surprise him! That must be it, because his friends knew about Namjoon and Yoongi, but not Jimin.
It must be.
It has to be.
Jeongguk slowly turned around, wind hitting his face as if he was in some sort of movie. He was bracing himself to see Jimin’s silvery hair tucked under a beanie, waving at him from some sort of leather jacket. To see his cheeky smile and melt at the sight of it.
He was fully turned around, eyes raising from the ground to look at the mysterious person. It wasn’t Yoongi, hands full of tiny bears Jeongguk had collected and left, or Namjoon, whining about his jacket. It wasn’t even Jimin, which he so hoped it was.
No, something much worse. Something– one. Someone who had rewired his brain, who is currently rewiring it again as he stands in the middle of the quad, squinting at Jeongguk like his vision isn’t perfect. A skinny cigarette hangs from that square mouth, penetrating a smile full of teeth. As soon as the man realizes, he straightens up, smiling harder and waving.
“Jeonggukie! I’m back!”