[ A/N: So this was originally going to be a oneshot, but it didn't feel finished to me so here we are. I don't yet have an upload schedule yet as I'm currently settling into a new job, but when I have a bit more of a routine going I'll set about to writing regularly! ]

 

 

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“Jeongguk broke up with me.”

 

A bitter pill to swallow.

 

Jimin didn’t understand Taehyung at first, the phone line weak and his voice weaker. He asked him to repeat himself, and Taehyung started to cry. Loud, gasping sobs. Jimin felt like they were sixteen again.

 

“Taehyung what’s wrong?” Jimin felt panicked, simultaneously too young and too old to know how to handle Taehyung this obviously distressed.

 

“He left me, Jimin!”

 

Oh.

 

“Who did angel?” Jimin asked before he could stop himself, because that couldn’t be right.

 

“Jeongguk! Who else?”

 

“That doesn’t make sense.” Taehyung loved Jeongguk. “He loves you.”

 

“Well apparently he doesn’t. Apparently, he got his emotions confused and he’s never loved me, because that’s a mistake so easily made, right?”

 

Apparently.

 

“Oh angel. Oh, Tae. Where are you? I’ll come pick you up.” Jimin was already fishing for his keys, shoving feet into shoes.

 

“I’m still at home, he left and I just,” a ragged breath, “I don’t know where to go.”

 

He was still crying, trying to stop – Jimin could hear the strain – but failing to do so. Jimin choked back his own tears.

 

“You can stay with me,” he offered, because what else could he do? He didn’t think Taehyung would want to be alone right now, didn’t want Taehyung to be alone.

 

“Will he want the flat? Will he move out? I love this place Chim, but it won’t be right. It won’t be right, without him here. I don’t want to be here without him. I don’t want to be without him.”

 

Jimin could hear Taehyung working himself into a panic, breaths coming frighteningly quick. He needed to move.

 

“I’m coming to pick you up Tae.”

 

“Stay on the phone with me?”

 

Jimin rubbed angrily at his eyes.

 

“Pretty sure that’s illegal – I’m going to drive.”

 

“Please Jimin, please don’t leave me.”

 

Quick breaths. On the stairs now.

 

“Okay, okay, don’t cry angel, I’ll stay on the phone.”

 

Anything Taehyung asked. Jimin would do anything.

 

“I can stay with you?”

 

“For as long as you want to, always. It’ll be like old times.”

 

That, of all things, seemed to calm Taehyung down.

 

“Okay, okay. I’ll, um. I should pack.”

 

Jimin breathed a sigh of relief as he stumbled into his car.

 

“You do that. Don’t stress too much right now – just grab what you need for tonight – and I can pick up anything else you need later on, okay?”

 

“Okay. Thank you.”

 

“Don’t need to thank me angel, it’s what friends are for.”

 

“Is that you in the car?”

 

“Mmhm, I’m just pulling out of the drive now. I’ll be there in twenty, okay?”

 

“M’kay. Can we get pizza on the way back?”

 

Jimin hiccupped a wet chuckle.

 

“Course we can.”

 

“An’ ice cream?”

 

“Whatever you want, always.”

 

Always.

 

“Love you Chim.”

 

“I love you too Tae.”

 

 

 

At twenty-four, Taehyung sits on Jimin’s couch, crying into a tub of ice cream, pizza lying cold and untouched in its box on the coffee table. Jimin hovers – useless – unsure – breaking. He’d thought of this scenario before, guiltily wondered how he would respond. He’d never wished for it of course, because Taehyung and Jeongguk had been perfect and in love and happy, but he’d wondered.

 

Now, as it plays out before him, he wonders why, in all his wondering, he’d never considered Taehyung the one broken. In his mind, Jeongguk would never leave Taehyung, because who would? No, it had always been Taehyung leaving or a mutual affair and usually, even in Jimin’s own mind, it could be and always would be fixed. Because he couldn’t see them apart – it doesn’t make sense. He’d be less surprised – his world less shaken – at his own parents divorcing, than this.

 

And he doesn’t know what to do, because in all his wondering, the Taehyung in his mind had never cried. He doesn’t know how to help, because Taehyung doesn’t cry around him – around anyone – not really, not properly. Over sad movies and puppies, sure, but not these honest, heaving sobs.

 

(Because Taehyung only cries like this for those he truly loves, when losing those he loves, and this is him losing Jeongguk.)

 

He wears a mask more than any of them, and in theory Jimin knows his fears and worries and emotions because they are open and honest with each other, but he hasn’t seen it in eight years. He racks his brain and remembers that he’d held Taehyung and cried with him then.

 

Jimin doesn’t know if he can bring himself to cry now, emotions too muddled, but he can hold him.

 

So, at age twenty-four, Jimin holds Taehyung. He holds him in a way Taehyung usually wouldn’t allow, despite being a fairly tactile person, cradling him to his chest and enveloping his body with his own. Letting him feel small – trying to be big enough to shield him while he’s vulnerable – knowing he’s making himself vulnerable in the process – deciding Taehyung’s more important.

 

(Because Jimin will always sacrifice himself for those he truly loves, for fear of otherwise losing those he loves, and he can’t lose Taehyung again.)

 

He let Taehyung cry himself to sleep wrapped up in him, sixteen. Taehyung let him wrap him up. At age twenty-four, Taehyung wipes aggressively at his still watery eyes, offers a tight smile, and retracts himself from Jimin – retracts into himself.

 

“Tae?”

 

Jimin is breaking.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Taehyung is breaking.

 

“Don’t apologise angel, please. You have nothing to say sorry for.”

 

Jimin is breaking watching Taehyung break.

 

“I feel like I do.”

 

They eat the pizza, cold now, and Taehyung crashes on the couch despite Jimin trying to insist he take his bed. Jimin retreats, defeated, to his room – retreats into himself.

 

Jimin lies awake in bed that night, sleep fighting him, and decides that he will do everything he can to make sure Taehyung doesn’t cry like this again.

 

The next few days passed by in a slight haze, like they really are reliving when they had shared a home and the memories aren’t quite clear, edges fuzzy. Jimin isn’t confident in his ability to comfort, his ability to coax Taehyung through it, so he does his best to distract. They spend hours talking, eating, watching whatever comes up – Jimin lets Taehyung commandeer the pseudo garden he keeps on his balcony. But.

 

By the time Sunday evening creeps around, everything kicking off that Friday prior, Taehyung is standing at the door, feet in shoes and keys in hand.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay another night, Tae?”

 

“I’m sure. I can’t just keep ignoring things Chim. Besides, I have work tomorrow and all my clothes are back home.”

 

Jimin thinks he could probably ignore it for a little longer.

 

“You’re sure? You don’t want me to go pick things up for you?”

 

“I’m sure. I don’t know where anything is, for one – you probably wouldn’t be able to find half of what I need.

 

Then again, Jimin deals with things differently from Taehyung – he always has – putting off emotions until he knows he’s equipped to deal with feeling them; Taehyung barrelling into everything as it comes, whether he’s ready or not. Jimin had asked him once, when they were younger, why he didn’t protect himself more – you wouldn’t go into battle without a plan, without being prepared, after all. Taehyung had shrugged him off, said it was all or nothing for him – that he couldn’t pick and choose emotions the way Jimin could – and then made some snide remark about Jimin viewing emotions as weapons.

 

After everything that has happened this weekend, Jimin thinks that view might not be so off-mark.

 

“You’re sure?”

 

“I’m sure, Jimin.”

 

By the time Sunday night creeps around, Jimin is alone again, falling asleep on the sofa partly because it smells like Taehyung – partly because he wants him to take the bed this time if he comes back.

 

By the time Monday morning creeps around, he’s still alone.