“And then,” HaYeon described, her eyes glistening with glee, “You wouldn’t believe this, but I saw him eating on his own! With his own hands!” She exclaimed, filling the quiet street with her cheer.

The night was deep and it was just the two of them. For many reasons, TaeHyung was not really listening to anything she was saying. All he could focus on what how fast his heart was beating at this alone time with HaYeon and he desperately just wanted to calm his heart down. He knew he likes HaYeon but his feeling that had accumulated up to that point in time were driving him beyond crazy.

“H-huh?” TaeHyung responded, slightly delayed and dazed, “oh... yeah I know that.”

His calmness on the matter shocked HaYeon who was more than excited at her realisation at the start. “You knew?”

TaeHyung just nodded as he tried to focus on the topic of their conversation. “We all knew that he had no problems with his arms which was why we can leave him food to eat on his own.” He let out a small laugh as HaYeon’s eyes brightened when she finally pieced it together. The fact that they had always left breakfast by his side without feeding it to him before they left in the morning had never occurred to her that, perhaps, he could feed himself. “He just couldn’t bring himself to move in front of people because of trauma. The doctor even told me that JungKook could walk if he wanted to because they would have healed by now. It is a matter of mind right now.”

HaYeon slowed her walking pace as she tried to think about what TaeHyung had just said. Subconsciously, TaeHyung matched his steps with hers for a while before suggesting that they sit for a while in the park near where they had walked to. HaYeon sunk into the cold bench as she thought harder. “Do you think he will ever get better?”

Taehyung unknowingly let out a deep sigh as he folded his arms across his chest before replying. “I don’t know. Moments before our parents died, JungKook was upset because my parents were nagging him about a bad grade he got so he skipped dinner and went upstairs to sulk.” His lips broke into a small sad smile as he recalled how adorable his brother was then. “But before we knew it, the house caught on fire. We could have all escaped if we were having dinner downstairs but because JungKook was upstairs alone, my parents had gone up to save him… After all those, I think he is like this because he saw my father die in the fire while coming up to get them and my mother basically used her body as a shield so that he could escape the fire alive.”

He poured his thoughts out, “After that, he gradually found himself being unable to move in front of people. And after a while, as self-hate start to consume him, he stopped talking as well. He thought that I would hate him. On many occasions, we almost lost him because he tried to take his own life so that he will not be a burden to me. I don’t need him to get better. If he wants, I can carry him for the rest of our lives. I just hope he would stop hating himself.”

HaYeon teared up at that but quickly wiped the tear away in order to not make TaeHyung feel bad. “I’m sure one day he will. Because he has brothers who loves him so much.”

TaeHyung just snickered at that as he shook his head in disagreement, “what’s love going to do here? It doesn’t matter how much I love him, he does not love himself. Love is not going to feed us. It’s not going to make him feel better.”

“That’s not true,” HaYeon countered daringly as she shared, “I used to think that way too. After that incident two years back I could not look myself in the mirror. I hated myself more than anyone in this world ever could and I wanted to end my life because I was feeling so miserable I didn’t believe that anyone could make me feel better. But you know what, right when I thought that my life was at its end, it was my ahjumma’s simple “I love you” one night and HwanHee’s strong grip whenever I’m beside her that saved me. Because I realized that someone loves me.” She finished as she looked him in his eyes and stared deep into his heart as she spoke with hers.

Then I met you, and realized I was capable to loving someone else too.

TaeHyung never heard those words, because she said it in her heart, but he felt something different about the way she looked at him. Almost like she was reaching out to him and for some unknown reason he liked that. He stared a little longer into her eyes and realized how much hurt she had hidden behind them all these years. “Maybe you’re right,” he replied after a while to what she had shared earlier, but his heart elsewhere.

I didn’t think I can ever like someone else apart from my brother and the friends I went through thick and thin with. Then you came along, and I realized I could.

But HaYeon never heard these confessions that happened in his head.

However, she did think she heard him say something else, though.

“What... did you say?” She asked again, unsure of what she had just heard.

“I said, I like you.” He simply replied.

The streets were quiet, and that confession came right out of the blue, catching both of them off guard.

But it felt just about right.

It was not a spectacular confession as others would have liked it, neither was it tears-inducing or concluded with a hug no on