* * * 

“What about tonight?”

Taehyung can clearly hear Jeongguk’s tired exhale on the other end of the line, and he tries to ignore his heart sink a little.

Alright, maybe his boyfriend had visited him just yesterday. Maybe they had been spending at least four out of seven days per week together for the past three years, even with college heavying down their schedule. And maybe, just maybe, Taehyung was already missing the out of him.

It was borderline addiction. Anyone would expect after so many years of being in a relationship for the spark to have died down to some extent, but not to him. More than anything did he wish every single day of his life could be spent alongside Jeon Jeongguk.

Unlike him, he could feel Jeongguk getting tired day by day. Most of their meetups consisted of Jeongguk sprawled across the couch with Taehyung happily cuddled up against his chest. Not that he was complaining - cuddling is the - but he was beginning to forget the last time they’d done anything ual. After a few days of no action, he supposed his boyfriend was worn out from school. Though after an entire two weeks, he felt restless, conjuring up the worst possible situations in his mind.

This how he finds himself with his phone raised to his ear, chewing on his lip anxiously after asking his boyfriend to sleep over.

“I don’t know, baby,” There’s a faint sound of plates clattering in the background. “A few people are over, don’t wanna ditch ‘em.”

Taehyung hums into the receiver, trying his hardest to sound as cutely disappointed as possible. “Come by when they’re gone?”

Jeongguk’s voice is a bit muffled and softer as he yells a response to someone calling him from a different room.

“My parents brought a few people around to the apartment, I don’t know if I’ll make it.” Jeongguk clicks his tongue. “Maybe tomorrow?”

Sighing, Taehyung reluctantly agrees before ending the call. Jeongguk had had a valid excuse, and he supposed it wouldn’t be right to whine on about not visiting because of family.

Besides, there was always tomorrow. Just like he said.

Taehyung groans and runs his hair through his hair before grabbing his phone to text his best friend, Jimin, to come over instead.

An even louder wail leaves his mouth when his thumbs pause on the keyboard, suddenly remembering this was the weekend his free hot spring visit coupon was valid.

Jeongguk and I should go to a hot spring together.

Rolling about his bed, he stuffs his face into a pillow, squealing and blushing immensely at the thought.

His thoughts are interrupted by a concerned voice coming from the first floor. “Taehyungie? You okay sweetheart?”

Taehyung giggles softly before calling back, “I’m fine mom!”

It isn’t long before his smile fades and he sits up in bed, clutching his pillow close. He wonders if he’s always been this pathetic.

His best friend and boyfriend were both enjoying themselves. What was stopping him from giving himself some TaeTae-Time?

Standing up confidently, he plops himself down in front of his laptop, typing “anime movies” into the search bar (because, duh) and snuggling up into the blanket hanging on the back of his chair.

Just as he moves to click on kissanime.au, he somehow misclicks “news”, kissing his teeth in mild frustration.

Moving his mouse to click “all” to return to his search of something to watch that would’ve probably ended up being another Inuyasha episode, his eye catches a certain article:

[December 15 2018] Studio Ghibli’s “Howl’s Moving Castle” Live Action Re-Make Tops This Week’s Box Office

Taehyung’s jaw drops. A large, boxy grin widens across his face and his entire mood lifts because guess what he’s ing doing tonight?

With or without a Jeon Jeongguk.

(Search: CGV TEHATRES NEAR ME SHWOING HOWS MOVING CADLRE )

* * *

Taehyung ignores the mixture of odd and sympathetic looks he gets from CGV employees as he buys a combo 3 alone (combo 3: two medium popcorns, one extra large drink, and any candy from the top row).

This is TaeTae-Time™. During TaeTae-Time™, Taehyung doesn’t need to look good for his friends or boyfriend. He’s allowed to buy two medium popcorns for himself.

Once he reaches the screen and snuggles into his seat, he yawns happily and stretches himself out like a kitten.

Arriving severely early has his up and downs. In this moment, it is very much an up, for it gives Taehyung the chance to rewatch the last few scenes of the original film.

Practically everyone who has simply heard the name “Kim Taehyung” knew that any form of art fueled his being more efficiently than food, water, and sleep. Studio Ghibli was no exception.

He could remember first watching Howl’s Moving Castle with Jeongguk at his apartment one night. Neither of them had seen it, but the entire watching process had been a mess. Jeongguk had had to kiss away an ocean of tears and snot all over Taehyung’s face as the movie ended.

There had been no sad ending at all, but Jeongguk understood the tears streaming down his face were from sheer appreciation for the beauty of the film’s story and art.

Then again, Jeongguk understood everything about him.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Jeongguk had whispered gently into his ear, “Someday you’re gonna make stuff like this. I know you will.”

Taehyung had shook his head at that, remembering how completely in awe he had been. Never could he imagine himself spewing out such a masterpiece of a film, but his boyfriend seemed to think otherwise.

No matter how badly he’d ever thought of himself, from his various works of art to physical appearance, Jeongguk supported him through it all. He was like his very own trampoline. The moment Taehyung felt he was falling, there’d always be his trampoline underneath him to spring him to his feet again.

“You have no idea, do you baby?” he would say. “How proud you make me every day.”

So here he finds himself wrapped up in his chair alone, sobbing quietly to himself and gaining a collective amount of stares from the almost completely full theatre as he finishes up the final frames of the movie.

He even manages to miss a few people around him leave their seats to find a quieter area without a grown man alone and recreating the pacific ocean in their seat.

Wiping away his own tears this time, he straightens up and sighs. He was beginning to feel an immense amount of guilt for not waiting until him and his boyfriend could see the movie together.

It is only when he sees Jeongguk walk into the theatre holding a combo three does he recognize the pitiful irony of his own thoughts.

What. In the living .

Following closely behind him was a smaller figure, a girl in a small white dress holding a clutch tightly to her side.

Taehyung doesn’t understand why his entire body shrivels up. His throat goes dry and finds himself not able to leave his seat or call out his name. He even goes through the whole “blink twice, double take, pinch yourself” routine, and still hasn’t fully acknowledged that any of this is really happening.

Jeongguk looks good. His hair falls softly over his eyebrows unlike it’s usually middle parted style. He’s in a large, white hoodie with light washed jeans. It’s a complete boyfriend look that, for the first time ever, Taehyung feels conflicted seeing.

Of course one of the only spots left with two free seats next to each other had to be the ones directly in front of him. As if life isn’t already serving him a heart attack neatly on a silver tray.

Purposely dropping his popcorn bag to the floor, he ducks his head between his legs as Jeongguk and said girl slip past people’s legs to get to the seats.

He makes sure to clean up all the spilled popcorn into the bag and rest in upright on the ground before lifting his head.

Taehyung finds himself still within a state of denial even after another ten minutes of previews show on the screen. He can’t even bring himself to try to listen in on their hushed conversations. So he merely sits their quietly, gluing his eyes to the mockingly happy ads playing on the screen.

Every negative thought, hell, every negative word in his entire vocabulary is screaming and pounding at the walls of his brain to acknowledge the situation and at least make himself known to the couple in front of him, but he can’t. And he doesn’t even know why.

His teeth perform a mixture of chattering and grinding while his ears begin to ring. Setting down the other bag of popcorn to the floor, he decides he can no longer eat. In fact, he felt a lot doing the sheer opposite; puking up the handfuls of food he’d managed to already chew.

It’s another five minutes within a state of complete numbness until the movie begins to play.

He doesn’t have to directly look at the couple to see the girl next shift closer to Jeongguk. Though, when he does take the risk to properly look down at the pair, the screen is illuminated with a company introduction that is a scorching white. The brightness provides Taehyung a perfect view of the girl (with beautiful hazel hair now visible) snuggling her head right into his boyfriend’s chest.

Jeongguk does nothing, his lack of a response wavering Taehyung’s feelings once again. He wants more than anything to be able to put all of his trust in his partner of three years, and he supposes a disinterest to the situation helps the cause.

Not that the whole scenario wasn’t completely off-putting and terribly wrong. In all,Taehyung considers himself either extremely generous or flat out idiotic.

The movie itself acts as a fair distraction. It isn’t nearly as glorious as the animated original, but the plotline provided a solid base.

Though it’s closeness to the original makes Taehyung feel uneasy. The fact that he’d seen it with Jeongguk creates a secure connection between him and the film. It’s disappointing that his boyfriend was choosing to see the very movie they’d first seen together with someone else, but then he remembers he did come to the movies on his own.

Same difference?

By the final quarter of the movie, Taehyung would consider himself a fair bit more relaxed. Aside from plotting devilishly as to how he’d make Jeongguk pay for ditching him for some , he was able to remain collected and keep his eyes mainly on the screen.

That is, until Jeongguk decides to wrap an arm around said girl.

Taehyung’s throat tightens.

Trying to identify what stirs in Taehyung’s stomach at this is a lot more difficult to brush off. Since coming to the theatre, he’d only witnessed the girl slobber herself all over his boyfriend with no response. This gesture, however, was initiated by Jeongguk.

Taehyung doesn’t attempt to look away this time. He observes each person's move to the very inch, catching every itty-bitty shift the girl makes closer to Jeongguk, feeling his heart start to crack.

The girl turns her head slowly to face Jeongguk, and Taehyung has a dark view of her face, visible enough to make out a fair bit of the features.

It would almost be an understatement to consider this girl beautiful. Her nose was small and sculpted wonderfully, paired with plump lips and long lashes that fluttered nauseatingly at Jeongguk.

Taehyung swears he feels himself swallow his own vomit.

Wanting to whine at her unfairly pretty features, he watches as Jeongguk meets her gaze. Taehyung can see her tongue leave to at her bottom lip.

Of course he knew what this meant. Instead of slipping a forceful hand between their lips, or obscenely swearing at the couple, or - above all - pouring his cherry vanilla coke all over their heads like any sane person would do, Taehyung is still.

Stiller than the girls lips, now pressed softly against Jeongguk’s.

When Jeongguk doesn’t make another move, she continues to greedily at his mouth.

More than anything does Taehyung want to grab a fistful of her hair, yank her sticky, glossed lips off him, and let her know Jeongguk is his.

But all of those thoughts vanish into thin air when he sees Jeongguk responding.

Jeongguk is tilting his head to press back into the kiss.

Jeongguk. Boyfriend.

Jeongguk.

Her.

Kissing.

Not him.

The first tear fall from his eyes.

If a measly arm around his shoulder places a crack in his heart, this burns him to the ground. His eyes don’t tear away from the scene as he continues torturing himself, watching the couple share gentle kisses back and forth, pulling away not just for breaths, but for the sake of sweet pauses.

A second tear falls.

A third.

A fourth.

When the girls small hand curves around Jeongguk’s shoulder to wrap around his neck and tug him closer, Taehyung lets out a quiet squeak.

Pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, he managed to wipe away the wetness from his face, though nothing could stop the quiet sobs pouring helplessly from his mouth.

His eyes are well swollen before a couple to the left of him tap his shoulder to silently ask if he was alright.

Taehyung decides he isn’t and wants desperately to leave the theatre, but he glues himself to his chair.

He wants to hate Jeongguk so ing much, he wants to blame him for being a ty boyfriend and a complete . He wants to use this to ignore how damn clingy he’s always thought he was.

Taehyung doesn’t want this to be his own fault.

When he feels it beginning to get too much, the credits roll. By the time the theatre is empty, a few people hesitating as they pass him to politely as if he was alright, he realizes he had completely missed the beautiful ending.

A soft chuckle coldly contrasting his pitiful sounds from earlier escape his lips at the thought of the film created so beautifully not being the reason for his tears, but the very man who would wipe them away.

His beautiful Jeon Jeongguk.

Nothing more than a filthy liar.

jeongguk, i love you. you're not an , i'm sorry for portraying you this way. 

sorry guys. that's all.