After they got back to Taehyung’s apartment late the next day it didn’t feel the same anymore knowing what she knew now.  Knowing there was no hope left for him.

‘We should do something together.’ He suggested as he put the bags in the bedroom and sat on the sofa next to her.  His health had dramatically improved since yesterday, but it wasn’t exactly reassuring. 

‘You should rest.’ She told him frightened he would pass out again, when she was alone with him, outside somewhere. 

‘I’m ok,’ he repeated for maybe the 100th time that day.  ‘I just,’ he paused, ‘I want to make memories with you.’ He mumbled as if it was stupid.

‘Why?’ she asked, it seemed illogical to her.  He wouldn’t be here to remember.

‘So, you don’t forget me.’ He said quietly, taking her hand in his.

It was painful to hear him say that out loud.  ‘How could I forget you?’ she told him.

He sighed before he spoke.  They hadn’t really talk about it since she found out yesterday.  She hadn’t wanted to bring it up, and Taehyung had wanted to pretend everything was normal.

‘I don’t mind dying.’ He told her as she brought her eyes up to meet his. ‘Really, I meant what I said, I understand, and I don’t mind dying as long as I can be with you, change your life, love you.  If I had 100 years, or 100 days I just want to be with you.  I want you to remember what it feels like to be really loved for a change.’

It was the most touching and most heart-breaking thing she had ever heard.  She ached for him not to die, not to leave her. 

‘I’m sorry I lied to you,’ he continued as she stayed silent, unable to find any words for him.  ‘I promised you I wouldn’t go anywhere, I promised you I was fine, and I lied to you.  I didn’t want you to feel what you’re feeling now.’

‘You can feel this?’ she asked him. 

He nodded, ‘I can feel everything you feel.  I feel when you’re scared, when you feel safe, your panic, your love.  I can feel that you love me, when you love me.’ His mouth twitched into half a smile as if remembering the feeling. 

‘What is it like?’ she asked him inquisitively.  She had never heard about soulbonds much, most of her life she had only heard about the pain of rejection. 

He laid his head back on the sofa, looking at her deeply.  ‘It’s hard to explain.  It’s like a second layer of feelings, I ache for you with how much I love you, I can feel my own panic and my own pain, but somehow, it’s just more when I feel what you feel.  When you’re content it’s like I can feel two layers of content.  When your heart aches with love for me, it adds to my own aching heart, and it’s like being full, being complete.  When you’re in pain I feel it from a different place within me, and it makes my own pain worse.’ His voice had become a hoarse whisper as he described the feeling too her. 

She’d never felt that.  Not from the moment she laid eyes on him had she felt anything he felt, she could barely understand her own feelings other than sheer panic most of the time, let alone decipher his feelings mixed in too. 

‘I wish I could feel you.’ She said sadly, breaking her eyes away from him.  She meant every word she said, but she couldn’t lift the curse of her rejection. 

‘I know, I feel that too.’ He softly sighed.  ‘I knew as soon as we were matched, it was like you filled me up, like a dam inside myself spilled open and I was suddenly so aware of how frightened and scared you were.’

‘When did you know?’ she asked him timidly, it was something that had been bothering her to ask him, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer. 

‘You – when they confirmed it, you looked at me and I knew I could never reject you.  Not when I looked into those eyes I’d been dreaming of my whole life.  You were so tiny, so afraid, my instinct was just to protect you.  It half crossed my mind to pick you up and run off stage with you then and there.  The feeling just seemed to fill me up, and then, then you looked away from me.  In those few seconds you looked away and you bit your lip, ready for me to reject you – instead - instead it blocked me from filling you.  I felt pain, like an ice needle in my heart.  The warm feeling, I had just experienced seemed to go cold somehow, and though I could still feel you, I could still feel how terrified you were, there was a cold ache adding to it all.’ He sighed, frowning. 

‘I knew then somehow you had rejected me, but I didn’t feel you hate me.  Some people have said the pain is worse because their soulmates hate them when they reject them.  It wasn’t like that, it wasn’t vicious the pain, it was just cold and sharp.’

A tear leaked from her eyes as she listened to him describe how he felt when they were matched.  She really had no idea any of that was possible and she knew she hadn’t intended any of it.  Remembering her feelings all she felt was cold fear.

‘I just remember being so scared.  My brother and my sister both told me about the pain, being unable to breathe, feeling like their soul had been shattered and everything just felt so painful.  I was just waiting for that feeling.’  She told him sadly, trying in some way to explain herself. 

‘I know you did. I also knew this was a different kind of rejection.  I’ve heard of stories, everyone has heard of how painful it is.  How they can’t breathe, the hateful aching.  I didn’t feel like that.  I could still breathe.  I didn’t feel like my soul had shattered, it was just cold.’ His eyes were sad, glistening as if he could cry, but his face was stoic, set neutral as he spoke. 

‘It took me a while to understand.  I couldn’t do anything on stage, and you still wouldn’t look up at me.  The noise of everyone shouting for me to reject you was giving me a headache and I just walked off, right past Jungkook and Jimin.  I just walked out of there, got in my car and came home. My bond kept pulling me to go back to you.’ He finished.  His thumb was rubbing circles in her palm as he spoke, which kept her calm.  It was impossible to get rid of the guilt she felt but listening to the truth of how he felt was somehow helping. 

‘I turned my phone off and I sat here all night long that night.’  He explained more.  ‘Jungkook was phoning me, my dad, Namjoon, Yoongi.  I didn’t want to speak to anyone.  I didn’t want to tell anyone what had happened.  I was afraid if I did someone would hurt you and I could already feel you hurting.  All night long I felt how confused you were, how hungry you were.  My soulbond was pulling on me to go to you, but I didn’t know how to do it.  I started to research a little about soulbonds, too see if there was anything on this kind of situation, and I found one, one very old story.’

‘I thought Namjoon found files?’ She asked him, captivated by the story.

‘He found official files.  I found an old story in a newspaper from a hundred years ago.  The website made out the woman was crazy and had some kind of mental problems, but