Year 18.

He was there when you had your first love.

After moving to Seoul from Daegu, the two of you had only managed to keep in touch thanks to the advanced tech of the 21^st century. That meant weekly FaceTime, regular phone calls, and non-stop Kakaotalk chats. Which was how he got to be one of the first people to find out when a certain Choi Junhong―one of your middle school upperclassmen―had managed to find you right after the latter apparently moved to the city for college.

Despite your being a little too dense to notice it, Junhong hadn’t been the most discreet about his interest toward you, even then. So his intentions for coming to find you all the way to Seoul was honestly too obvious.

Not that Taehyung could’ve done anything about it. It wasn’t even like you could have seen how Taehyung tensed at the way you smiled fondly while telling him how Junhong had apparently waited for you outside your school gates, desperately “asking for your favor to guide a newcomer around town” (cue excessive eye rolling session courtesy of Kim Taehyung), and maybe a nice coffee date after. To catch up for old time’s sake, he said.

Pffffft.

Bull.

During middle school, everybody who knew you and Junhong knew you two were going to end up dating each other someday. Although hope had fallen for a while after your abrupt transfer to Seoul, some close friends of yours still believed that the ship would sail eventually nonetheless. What with Junhong nearly finishing high school and moving on to the big city for university and all. You two were just bound to meet again. Much to Taehyung’s dismay.

And as if life had no other better things to do than to crush his hopes and dreams, the news of your relationship had slapped him hard in the face not long after.

“Junhong oppa asked me to be his girlfriend!” You squealed, obvious joy lacing your every syllable.

You were so excited―so much that you couldn’t have noticed the smile that instantly fell from Taehyung’s face.

At that moment, he wanted to be happy for you. He really did.

And as you continued chattering on about how Junhong had offered the question earlier that day, he channeled his inner actor and slapped on what he hoped resembled a genuine smile. You looked and sounded so happy that he couldn’t bear to rob you off that. Because when else had he ever seen you smile that wide?

He just wished that he were the cause of that smile.

 

 

Year 19.

He wasn’t there during your first heartbreak. Instead, your cousin slash his best friend, Park Jimin was.

Your Seoul best friends, Lee Seulbi and Kang Noeum were there too. And although they didn’t seem to be as much help as Jimin’s smooth talks and caring persona, still they were there.

Only he wasn’t.

distance―it was one of the things he had regretted the most in life.

Nonetheless, he had to hear from Jimin about all the details that he missed. About how broken you were, how hard you cried, how lost you looked. About all the Oreos that you chomped down or the piles and piles of tissues that ended up strewn all over your room. About how you were practically a cranky zombie for days on end, ultra-sensitive to anything involving ‘he-who-must-not-be-named’ and love in general. All of them things that he never would have wanted to know but in the end had to know.

He vowed to himself then that he would always, always be there when you need him, no matter the circumstances.

 

 

 

Year 21.

He was there when you got together with your second boyfriend.

The two of you (along with Jimin, Seulbi, and Noeum) were university sophomores. While the others scattered themselves to various universities around Seoul, only you and Taehyung got into the same one albeit different majors.

He would think that this was his chance to get you to notice him.

He was wrong.

A appeared between the two of you in the form of Min Yoongi, right as you two were entering your second year.

Min Yoongi was one of your brother’s closest friends, thus granting him the benefit of seeing you much around your own house whenever he would come visit your brother, Namjoon. You had known him ever since your family moved to Seoul, and Taehyung had had his own few interactions with the older male. Yet never in a million years would he have expected the latter to be a potential love rival.

Though yet again, Yoongi was clearly never the most predictable guy out there.

Yoongi was a man of few words. He never seemed to show any kind of interest toward anything, much less a special interest toward you. Unlike your brother’s other best friend, Jung Hoseok, Yoongi never seemed to be interested in making conversations with you. He had never even tried. He had always been simply one of your older brother’s best friends, and Taehyung had expected it to stay that way.

Until one morning, you came up to him and broke the news.

Plopping on the bench where Taehyung was peacefully highlighting important points from his textbook, you wasted no time in telling him “Yoongi oppa asked me out last night,”

Taehyung’s―very standardly huge―textbook almost slid right off his lap.

“What?” His voice came out almost as a choke. ”Wh- but- uh- how?”

Your face turned scarlet.

“It just… happened,” you mumbled, chewing on your bottom lip to prevent any unwanted giggling as you recalled last night’s events.

Oh damn it. Kill him now.

It was like déjà vu, where he had to experience this kind of thing for the second time. Yet, it didn’t seem like the previous experience with Choi Junhong had prepared him any better for this one because damn, the pain still stung like a .

He really really sincerely hoped that this would be the last.

Gathering his inner actor back, Taehyung attempted to gulp the bitter feeling at the back of his mouth down before casually inquiring you further.

“And?” He tried to sound as unfazed as possible. “What did you tell him?”

Taehyung would be a big liar if he said he didn’t wish that you would say “no”; however stupid that hope was.

But one can’t always have exactly what they hoped for, can they?

You turned even redder, if that was possible, and Taehyung almost didn’t want to hear what you were about to say.

“I said yes,”

 

 

Year 23.

Your second heartbreak was even worse than your first.

Well, at least this time he was there with you.

Through incoherent words that you had managed to slip out in between heart-wrenching sobs and wails, Taehyung could barely make out the story you were telling. You had long been complaining about how your boyfriend (now ex-boyfriend) wasn’t acting like he liked you anymore if at all, and it had apparently involved a lot of yelling and nasty fights between you and Yoongi that brought your relationship to its long predicted end.

Taehyung couldn’t say that he had expected this to happen, honestly, but he’d also be lying if he said he wasn’t hoping for the breakup eventually. It made him feel like a big, big for indirectly wishing for your misery, but it wasn’t like he was perfect enough to do anything about it.

He felt miserable. Because for the most part, all he wanted was to shake you up to reality that he was here. He had been waiting for you for the longest time so why can’t you see him, dammit.

Nonetheless, as you were curled up on your bed, fast asleep out of exhaustion from your non-stop crying, with piles of used tissues and Oreo wrappers cluttering your room, and Taehyung’s arms tight around you; he decided that in that moment, none of that mattered anymore.

 

 

Year 25, part 1.

He wasn’t there for your third courtship.

Thank. Heavens.

The both of you had graduated from college a couple of years ago and had landed good jobs in your respective fields. You hadn’t been in another relationship since your messy breakup with Min Yoongi a few years back, and neither had Taehyung. The two of you had been hanging out a lot as the pair of best friends that you were for the past years and life had never fed Taehyung’s hope more than it did then. He was always with you, beside you, and all was well.

But of course, the ONE time he had to leave you, everything went crumbling down.

Taehyung was away on an overseas business trip when he got that call from you. The two of you had been calling each other without absence almost every night to simply exchange what was going on with your lives while you were away.

He just really didn’t see it coming that night when he picked up the call. And to think that he, in all of his naïve stupidity, simply thought that it was going to be another blissful conversation with you to end the night.

“Hey,” he breathed out. He was in such a happy mood that day and your call just made it all the more reason to be.

But of course, you had never been the type to small talk. Something that Taehyung would’ve appreciated in this case.

“Hey Tae, I have a good news and a bad news. Which one do you wanna hear first?”

You were effectively giggling even when you mentioned “bad news” so eh, how bad can it be, right?

“Hmm…” playfully, Taehyung pretended to think, just for the sake of the show. “Gimme good news first. A lil’ relief before the bad stuff, yeah?”

Laughing at the joke Taehyung threw at the end of his sentence, you mumbled an equally playful “whatever”, not at all noticing that one small, small part of truth that the sentence held. You then proceeded to say.

“Well then Tae, you’re really gonna love this one,” he could almost hear you wink at him. “Cos you’re in for a real treat when you come back here, my friend. That disgustingly expensive French restaurant you’ve always wanted to go to? Consider it done,”

Taehyung’s eyes grew wide as a loud, strained sound of pure joy escaped his throat. “WHAT?! Wait- , you’re not kidding, right?” He knew you weren’t, but it never hurts to make sure. “What’s the occasion, though?”

Wrong question. He realized that when he could practically hear you grin from across the line.

“That,” your voice sounded smug. “Is where the bad news comes in,”

The first thought that crossed Taehyung’s mind was , she didn’t get a promotion and got relocated to some really faraway place, did she? But then he quickly shook the thoughts off because there was no way that you’d sound so happy about leaving town, where your family and friends were (he deducted that based off your behavior just when you were moving out of Daegu years ago so yeah).

Then what?

“Because it looks like you’ll be the only member left in our little club. I just graduated,”

Club? What club? Did you even have a club―

Oh wait. .

You had a club. Formed together with Jimin, Seulbi, and Noeum. The club name also became your group chat’s title.

The Singles’ Club.

Noeum had had a boyfriend since forever, thus only making her an honorary member. Jimin had started going out with Seulbi not too long ago, thus leaving only you and Taehyung as the real singles in The Singles’ Club.

But just now you said that you “graduated” the club… Taehyung could only hold on to his nonexistent hope that you didn’t mean what he thought you meant.

“I got a boyfriend!”

Taehyung scoffed inwardly. Right. He had been trusting life too much.

 

 

 

Year 25, part 2.

That third relationship didn’t last long however.

Your boyfriend, Mark, was a Canadian. The two of you met while doing collaboration projects together between his company and yours. While your relationship had initially been strictly professional, one thing led to another and voila! Suddenly you were together.

The two of you had a pleasant relationship and a really, really good time together. Mark was a nice person. You could say that you liked him a lot. There was even a time when you thought that you could really picture a future with him.

Unfortunately, none of that mattered in the face of distance.

When the project was done and Mark no longer had the reason to stay in Korea, you had then begun your long distance relationship. The two of you promised to make the relationship work despite the distance and the unspoken skepticism that you refused to acknowledge.

In the end, it turned out that neither you nor Mark were strong enough to handle the barrier. The very brief time that you had to get to know each other didn’t let you build a strong enough foundation to last. So before you even reached the 3 months mark, you were done.

Unlike your last relationship, you had parted amicably. Both you and Mark were responsible adults, and for the first time in your breakup history, you didn’t shed a tear over it.

Much to Taehyung’s relief.

 

 

 

Year 28.

Fast forward a few years later, after all those years of watching you walk in and out of one relationship to another, from one wrong choice to another, from one heartbreak to another, finally he was here. He was really, finally here. He was here to witness you in all your glory, dressed in white from top to toe, two layers of white veil and a crown of white roses above your head, about to make what he sincerely wished would be the rightest choice in your life.

And damn, you were glowing while you’re at it.

He had to hold his breath as you walked down the aisle, arms around your father’s, smile not leaving your lips even for a second.

As the wedding march came to an end and you were now standing right in front of the aisle, he didn’t miss the way you tighten your grip around your father’s arm.

With tear-filled eyes you and your father looked at each other, knowing that this was the end of your life as simply your parents’ daughter, and the start of your being someone else’s wife,―and maybe in the future―someone else’s mother. The both of you wordlessly reminisced the whole happy life that you’d lived up until this day, sending looks of love and gratitude for all the happy years you had spent together. Taehyung could just see the sadness in your father’s eyes as the last bit of reluctance in giving away his precious daughter took the best of him for a split of a second. It didn’t last long however, as you gave your father a barely visible nod, assuring that it would all be okay―that you would be okay, the old man finally released all his previous doubts and handed you over to the man who was going to love, cherish, and protect you in his stead from now on.

”Take care of her,” your father whispered, voice cracking in the slightest.

Taehyung smiled faintly. Of course. Of course.

You were choking back your tears as the warmth of your father’s hold left your gloved hand, trusting you into the warmth of your groom’s fingertips.

And as you looked up, big brown eyes filled with whatever remained of your short emotional rendezvous, all that was left for you now were hope and the future that you were just about to start building.

The future reflected in Choi Seungcheol’s eyes.

 

...

 

 

 

 

Author's Some girl's note:

*hides in a hole*