For the Best

Jimin’s back hits the wall hard, the force of it knocking the air out his lungs and leaving his head spinning. He smirks instead of crying.

“What the , Jimin?!”

Taehyung has never been this upset, has never been this livid in all of their twelve years of friendship, and under normal circumstances the out of character behaviour would be unsettling if not for the fact that Jimin is laughing out loud in a hysterical, disbelieving sort of way.

“I think I made it pretty clear,” Jimin spits back, “I’m in tired of this.” He ignores the tremble that runs down his spine and focuses all his energy into preventing the storm that’s raging inside his heart from showing on his face. He tries to remind himself that this is for the best even if it feels like he’s swallowing a handful of thumbtacks.

“And what is this, huh?” Taehyung screams incredulously, “Was this a game to you? Were you playing with me this entire time?!”

Jimin’s laugh is hollow, narrow eyes glaring up at the other as he roughly shoves at him. Internally he’s trying to convince himself that Taehyung isn’t the most beautiful person he’s ever seen, but Jimin has never been a good liar. “F- off.” He makes to push away from the wall, but is immediately caught and slammed back into it.

“You told,” the younger growls. It’s not a question.

“Yeah, so what?” Jimin sneers. He’s almost past his limit, the churning urge to vomit rising in his throat and making it difficult to maintain a stoic face, but he’s hell bent on breaking Taehyung in every way possible. “You’re a ing ! How could I not warn everyone about you?!”

(Jimin thinks it’s for the best.)

And like a dam breaking, Taehyung’s angry facade crumbles as his eyes fill with tears and spill over. He feels numb, so very numb, so he lets his knees buckle, wincing when they slam into the ground but not moving from the position. “I-I’m just a-” he swallows hard, voice fading in volume. “O-oh.”

Jimin wastes no time, side stepping his way quickly around the room in an attempt to stay as far back as possible. He has to or else he won’t be able to resist the urge to pull Taehyung into his arms and apologize. Jimin hopes the scowl he wears on his face says otherwise.

“You already knew this was coming,” Jimin adds just for the hell of it, “Save the tears for someone who cares.”

(Jimin cares.)

He approaches the door at a lazy speed, head held high like he’s unaffected by the bull he just passed as truth, but as he places a hand against the wall for balance, he can’t slip his shoes on fast enough to hide the the fact that his knees are shaking so badly he can barely stand. He stumbles forward and reaches out for the doorknob, but the closer he gets to it, the farther it moves out of his reach.

(Jimin doesn’t want to leave.)

“...M-minnie”

“...”

“Jiminie-” Taehyung’s throat closes up on the last syllable, sound dropping off pathetically as he squeezes his eyes shut and wills the tears to stop falling.

And Taehyung is certain that he’s dying because only in hell did he expect to feel this much pain.

Jimin's words their way through his chest like fire, unrelenting as they smolder and char the thin walls of his paper heart. And Taehyung, eyes wet and voice hoarse, can’t cry long or hard enough to smother out the flames before they've burned him to the ground.

Jimin has got a grip on the door handle now and nearly tears it from the frame in his haste. He turns around only once, stealing one last glance then covering it up by pelting his spare key at the other.

(If Jimin keeps it, he’d try to come back.)

“Take your ing key,” he grits, “And throw mine away too. If I catch you anywhere near my place, I’ll call the cops.”

(Jimin thinks it’s for the best.)

“Jiminieee-” Taehyung sobs as he struggles to pull himself up off the ground, “S-stop. Stop this, Jiminie- Just stop, please-”

(Jimin slams the door when he leaves.)

(Taehyung pinches himself, but he’s already awake.)

*****

2 Years Later

“I need two coquilles saint-jacques; one coq au vin, no mushrooms; and one magret de canard, bloody, with a side of asparagus for table three out in twenty!”

“OUI, CHEF!”

“And does someone have the Pinot Noir for table seven?!”

“Oui, Chef!” Taehyung calls as he weaves his way through the packed kitchen, bottle of wine held high above his head. “I’ll run it!”

He makes a half turn as he approaches the door, using his shoulder to push open the heavy oak covered in a layer of deep red velvet. Taehyung has always felt at home in the restaurant scene and, despite his propensity to burn things, is on his way to becoming a pretty good chef. Senior year of college, he jumped at the opportunity of an internship in France, and after completing his time there and graduating, they offered him a position as Tournant he couldn’t refuse. He does a little of this and a little of that in the kitchen, not quite sure on what he wants to specialize in, but the best part of his job is that he doesn’t have to. Some days he opens the bakery, other days he’s on sauces, and more often than not he’s volunteering to work the floor in order to interact with the interesting people that make their way into the four star restaurant.

“Your wine, madame.” He holds the bottle out carefully with a slight bow then begins to screw the opener into the cork. He nearly drops it when the older woman speaks up.

“Is this how you treat a your favorite customer now that you're up for a promotion? All this time I thought we were closer than this.”

Taehyung looks up quickly in surprise, but smiles when he realizes who he’s speaking to. “Bonjour, Madame Blaise,” he grins then turns to the gentleman at her side and bows again, “Bonjour, Monsieur Blaise.”

“Can you believe this, Charles?” she teases, “After all we’ve done for this boy, he can’t even remember what we look like.”

“Madame Blaise, I-”

“And top of it all,” she interrupts with a smirk, “He still refuses to dye that dreadful hair.”

Taehyung immediately reaches up to run a hand through his orange locks. “It’s fashionable!”

“You’re 23,” she fires back.

“Well you didn’t like it green or purple or red, so I toned it down a notch.” Taehyung laughs back as he gracefully pours them each a glass of wine, “Besides, I think orange suit me, don’t you?”

Madame Blaise waves him off with a gloved hand and a wink, “Whatever you say, love. Now hurry back before you get into trouble.” Taehyung offers a quick salute and a promise not to work too late before bouncing back to the overcrowded kitchen.

Taehyung owes his life to the Blaises. The older couple housed him while he studied abroad his senior year and later insisted he continue living in the apartment complex they owned even after graduating. Without their support, Taehyung doesn’t know where he’d be now seeing as he’s only semi fluent in French (he knows kitchen terms but not much everyday vocab) and had almost no savings when he first arrived. They’ve become his second family and number one fans, going as far as to put him through additional schooling at the best institute money could buy to help him achieve his dream of becoming a chef.

Things have been looking up for him since he came to France, not just opportunity wise but emotionally as well. The break up was… rough. It came out of nowhere and with no explanations offered, but rather than dwell on it for long, Taehyung painted a smile on his face each day and marched on. Eventually that smile made it’s way to his eyes, and in all honesty it took less time than he expected. Taehyung used food as an escape, and to this day he’s glad that he threw himself into his studies rather than let the situation weight down on him. He has a career, a few dollars saved away, the Blaises, and a dumb best friend who’s a total lightweight but has a love for French wines.

“Hobi hyung,” Taehyung calls from where he’s hunched over a table, scrubbing it clean. It’s well past closing time, but the two are still in the restaurant tidying up to earn a few brownie points. Hoseok was the first person from their university to be invited for an internship and asked to stay afterwards. The two became best friends while going through hell cooking bootcamp together, both of them taking comfort in someone who spoke the same mother tongue and had the same yearning for kimchi.

“Yeah, what,” Hoseok grunts from under a table. How rich people are this messy is beside him.

“Hyung, do you believe in fate?”

Hoseok turns to look at Taehyung with a confused expression, broom forgotten for the time being. “What kind of question is that?”  

The younger shrugs nonchalantly as he wrings out a towel soaked in cleaning solution. “Just curious, is all.”

The older narrows his eyes in suspicion, slowly setting down his broom as he considers the question. “I guess… I do,” he nods, but the serious tone is gone in a split second as he begins expanding on his answer. “Unless, of course I don’t like where things are headed,” he grins. “In those cases, I grab fate by the balls and-” he gestures wildly into the air.

“Oooookay,” Taehyung interrupts, throwing his towel at the other in disgust, “I should’ve known you’d turn this into something weird.” The crooked smile he gets in response is one he sees often in his nightmares, so Taehyung ducks into the back to triple check the pantries before Hoseok continues on with his vulgar description.

In the back, he walks briskly up and down the aisles taking stock mentally. Working in a four star restaurant means they work with ingredients of the highest quality, half of which Taehyung can barely pronounce. He remembers being tested on how well he could taste certain spices in food and how he and Hoseok used to sit in the back room blindfolded trying to guess what the other just fed them. And to no surprise, Taehyung was forced on an unforgivable number of occasions to scrub the tastebuds off his tongue after Hoseok fed him something inedible. Taehyung smiles fondly at the memory and vows to get his hyung back one of these days. (It’s a promise he makes often but never keeps.)

When he’s sure there’s enough ingredients for the next day’s menu, Taehyung makes a quick circle around the room to flick off the lights. “Let’s go, hyung,” he sighs as he pushes his way out of the kitchen, “I’m tired and hungry and there’s a pillow at home with my name on it.”

Hoseok looks up surprised, but whoops a “ yeah!” as he crawls from underneath a table. He stands up to stretch his arms over his head then helps the other stuff the cleaning supplies back in the closet. “Let’s hurry, yeah?” he asks as he gathers up his belongings, “It’s supposed to rain tonight and I’m pretty sure I left my window open.”

The two pull their coats on and head out to the parking lot after locking up the store, shivering in the heavy wind and guffawing when Hoseok drops the keys four times in a row. (When he gets home his room looks like a tornado passed through it. He was right about the window.) The car is overflowing with their obnoxious laughter and off key singing, so much so that they draw the attention of the few people still out walking the dark streets. They pull up to Taehyung’s place in less than ten minutes, Hoseok’s beat-up mustang cruising to a hissing stop.

“Get out my car.”

The younger smiles as he throws open the door. “Love you too, hyung.”

“Yeah yeah sure,” Hoseok waves him off, “Now out; Yoongi is already pissed at me, and if I don’t wanna listen to him all night, I need to get home asap.”

“Yeah yeah sure,” Taehyung mimics perfectly, “We all know that’s not how Yoongi keeps you up at night. You two are as .”

Though he doesn’t say it out loud, Taehyung has a deep-felt respect for their relationship. Yoongi moved from Seoul all the way to a foreign country for Hoseok’s sake, and from the second Taehyung heard the story (told by a very drunk Yoongi) he’s been a dedicated yoonseok shipper.

“What I do with my man-wife is my business,” Hoseok growls, pushing at the other. “Now out.”

Taehyung reluctantly kicks his legs out the door then hauls himself up.“ Pick me up in the morning?”

From inside the cabin the other rolls his eyes dramatically and revs the engine. “Don’t I always? Just try not to sleep in for once - the last thing I wanna see again is your crusty face smeared with toothpaste and jelly.” With that and a small salute, Hoseok peels out the driveway and down the street, leaving a trail of thick smoke behind him. Taehyung waves slowly at the receding vehicle, boxy smile lighting up the dark before the rank smell of burning rubber sends him into a coughing fit. Hoseok really needs a new car.

Taehyung turns to make his way up to the front door, bouncing up each step in his haste to jump into a nice warm shower before he knocks out on his oversized couch. Later he’ll wish he spent the night at Hoseok’s place after he sees what’s waiting for him, or who rather, but for now he turns his key in the lock and pushes his way inside, oblivious.

FATED TO BURN

A/N

So I fiiiiiiiinally put up the first chapter after having this story in my WIP folder forever hehe What do you guys think so far? I'm experimenting with a different writing style, and so far I'm liking it a lot better :D Thanks so much for reading ^^ ilysm!!

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