Taehyung

“Hyung, you’re kidding me, right?” Taehyung’s voice is loud and he knows it, but what Jin just said has him reeling in disbelief. “You can’t possibly be serious, there is no way I’ll survive that, you know I won’t. I barely survived when he walked out the first time. How can you ask me to let him back in?”

“That’s not what I’m asking, Tae, and you know it.” Jin’s voice is soft and velvety and normally one word from his eldest hyung is enough to calm Taehyung down, but not this time. “You know I wouldn’t suggest it if there were another way. As your brother, I want nothing more than to beat the crap out of him for what he did to you, but as Jungkook’s doctor, this is the right decision for him.”

Taehyung knows Jin would never ask if he didn’t believe it was absolutely necessary. He wants to scream at Jin letting him that he’s not ready, not ready to open that door, not ready to open his home -- he’s just not ready. Jungkook had broken his heart - shattering it like glass the day he left - even now, a year later, Taehyung is still pulling out splinters, still searching for missing parts of his broken soul. It’s been a little over three hundred and sixty-five days and Taehyung still doesn’t feel whole. (This is ing crazy.)

When Jin informed him that Jungkook had written Taehyung’s address down as his own he’d thought his brother was joking. It used to be their home, the place where they swore to grow old together, the place they planned to raise a family, the place… the place that Jungkook walked out of without ever looking back. Hearing Jin say Jungkook wrote their home has another piece of Taehyung’s heart falling to the floor. The world feels like it has halted its movement and is no longer spinning, he can’t think straight, he can’t form sentences, he can’t swallow down the knot that has throat locked up.

He looks up at Jin.

“I-I don’t think I can do that. I mean I really don’t think I can do that.” Taehyung frantically paces about Jin’s office. “No. No. No, I can’t. He can’t... It nearly killed me hyung. Killed me, I can’t. I just-”

Taehyung stops walking and throws himself down to slouch in a chair. Jin rises from his desk, walks to his younger sibling, pulls Taehyung out of the chair and into his arms.

“I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t necessary, Tae. Jungkook has a form of retrograde amnesia and it’s quite different from anything I have witnessed before.” Jin breathes in, as though he needs to choose his next words carefully, and he hugs Taehyung a little tighter. “It seems, it looks as though… God there’s just no right way to say this, the only thing Jungkook seems to have forgotten is you.”

The words are like a bullet, piercing Taehyung’s already fragile form - and for a brief moment he swears his heart has stopped beating. Taehyung can’t hear anything, but the silence is still punctuated with Jin’s words. Not only had Jungkook walked away, but now, now he had forgotten, completely.

I’m the only thing he doesn’t remember?

Taehyung stiffens in Jin’s arms, his breath hitting Jin’s skin in hard puffs as he struggles to get air. He wonders how much worse it can get, how many different ways can this one person break him?

I am the only thing he doesn’t remember.

“It’s the only way, Tae. The only way.” Jin tightens his hold as Taehyung sinks into him rocked by sorrow.

He cries, hard.

There’s nothing else he can do, no other way for him to express the pain he feels at this moment. He wants to say no, wants to tell Jin that he’d rather watch Jungkook burn in hell than help him. He doesn’t though, he knows it’s a lie, he knows that even now, after all that he has gone through, after all the hurt and sleepless nights he still loves him, and if Jungkook needs him, then… he’d be there.

“I’m so sorry Taehyung-ah. I wish I could make it better, but I will be there no matter what. You won’t be doing this alone. I swear.” Jin’s words are a whisper, a sound that tickles his ear but has no definitive meaning. No matter how many people gather around him, Taehyung is certain he’ll still be going through this alone.

He cries harder.

*****

Three days later, Jungkook is cleared to leave the hospital. Jin had explained to him the particulars of his condition and Jungkook was about as shocked and worried as could be expected, riddling the doctor with questions trying to wrap his brain around the information. Is it permanent? What do you mean I’ve only forgotten one thing? Is that even possible? Wait? One person? I know him? Jungkook looked at Taehyung on more than one occasion and asked, “Is it true? Is all of this true? Because it’s crazy. You think it’s crazy too, right?”

Taehyung wholeheartedly agrees, it’s ing crazy.

ing crazy, he repeats the statement again in his head while walking behind Jungkook’s wheelchair which is being pushed by a friendly and talkative nurse. Jungkook is slumped in the chair as though buckled down by an invisible weight. Taehyung wonders again what possessed him to say yes, this is stupid, beyond stupid, this is crazy. He is about to bring home the person who ripped his heart to shreds and didn’t even have the decency to hand him a band-aid. He’s about to take home the person whose name keeps him up at night, the person whose warmth he misses the most... and he’s not sure if this means he’s a glutton for punishment or just insane. He’s about to bring home a person who has wiped his existence from their memory banks (a person who I will remember even after I die).

For umpteenth time Taehyung thinks, this is crazy.   

The drive is quiet and tense, the silence is so thick Taehyung is sure he could cut it with a knife. He can feel the stress of all their unsaid words like weights tied to his ankles, pulling him down and drowning him in the uncomfortable hush. Every minute sound is heightened and Taehyung notices noises he’s never paid much attention to before, like the way the tires impact the road with a thud, thud, thud or the way the air from the vents creates a