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the first time taehyung ever held a crayon, his first thought was to put it in his mouth.
oral learning is a vital and effective part of a baby’s development.
he doesn’t recall the memory, but the desaturated glossy freeze frame in his photobook captures how his eyes were wide in fascination at the concept of colour. creating colour, creating shapes and lines with your own hands.
somewhere in a box in the attic, that same a4 paper covered in red and blue and yellow and green scribbles sits there, with a little caption written at the back in much more eligible handwriting;
taetae’s first drawing
the first time taehyung was aware of his own name, of his own existence, he blabbered the consonant out like a mantra; t-t-t, ta tuh ta, taetae. taetae, me? taetae!
it’s in a grain overlaid recording of a little boy with a party hat way too big on his head, a cake way to sweet for his liking, icing on his nose and stars in his eyes, where he claps back at the faces of the people who he still doesn’t know he loves, smile wide with four front teeth and all the joy his tiny body could muster. the tape is hidden amongst the cobweb of memories up in the attic,
taetae’s first birthday/taetae’s first words
it’s a few months before his fourth birthday when taehyung first sees the tears in his mother’s eyes, doesn’t understand them because “i’m a big boy, eomma, i even have a mickey mouse bag to prove it!”
it’s on the same day that tae discovers the realms of the world beyond his front yard, beyond his grandparents’ garden. it’s on the same day tae learns that birthdays don’t only occur on december 30th. on that day that tae learns to know more people, know more colours, know and know and know so much that even the knowledge he’ll accumulate in the next twenty years will still not be a speck of what’s to learn about this world.
after figuring out the wonders of the web in an internet café tucked at a corner downtown, it’s an e-mail to his aunt in australia with a single attachment that took an hour to import from the new digital camera and thirty minutes to upload,
tae’s first day of school
it’s a week after that first day when taehyung inevitably breaks out of his shell and makes friends with every being on two legs at his school, including the plastic flamingo he loved to play with in the sand box out on the playground.
it’s after a “no, i don’t like you,” from a boy from another class and “ew, get away from me!” from the girl in pigtails when taehyung meets life in human form.
it’s a boy with crescents for eyes and dough for cheeks and happiness for organs so abundant, he’d physically collapse everytime he so much so as giggles.
it’s a boy with chubby hands and vivid dreams and a pinky promise that “we’re going to be the bestest friends forever, tae.”
it’s a polaroid that still hangs on a frame in both of their bedrooms with faded marker that says
tae’s first best friend
it’s the same pinkies wrapped up around each other, adorned by a sticky mix of strawberry and vanilla ice cream, skipping around the neighborhood, that taehyung feels anger for the first time. a pebble in the sidewalk catches onto his best friend’s shoe, sending him tumbling to the ground, his knee scraping onto the pavement.
all it takes was a wobble, two, of his bottom lip, a sharp inhale, and the sight of raw flesh that makes taehyung see red.
no one, nothing in this world could hurt his jimin. he takes the pebble in his hand and chucks it across the street, angry at the inanimate object, angry at the world.
his ice cream cone is long forgotten, face down at the pavement, and he’s cradling best friend in his arms. he shushes and whispers that everything will be okay, you’re a strong boy, jiminie, i swear to the universe that i’ll get rid of every rock that ever existed, i swear to the universe that i will always protect you, jiminie. you’re my strong best friend.
he kisses his knee, takes him home and lets his mum give jimin one of his bugs bunny themed band-aids. “thank you, taetae,” he hears when the tears subside to sniffles. “i love you so much.”
taehyung’s first act of love
it’s june 21st, 2001 when the tears in two fathers’ eyes are a mix of tears of fondness and tears of humor as they spot their children in the doorway, arms around each other, wearing their fathers’ shirts and ties and shoes and their hearts on their sleeves and it’s the longest day of the year, it’s summer solstice, but their grins were so wide that the sun found shame and set early.
“happy fathers’ day!”
taehyung and jimin’s first preschool fathers’ day recital
it’s two boys giggling under the sheets, elmo-themed pyjamas matching, the darkness in the room not strong enough to dull the glint in their eyes. they stare at the ceiling, adorned with glow-in-the-dark stars and planets they stuck earlier that day, marveling over the phosphorus green that stares back at them.
“you know, taehyungie,” jimin turns, fingers shooting sparks from where they lay on both of taehyung’s cheeks. “we’re gonna see the universe together some day.”
taehyung and jimin’s first sleepover
it’s two boys giggling silently, probably high on the paint fumes they’re currently drenched in.
“i expect this behaviour from anyone but you two,” their supervisor says, eyebrows furrowing in disappointment. art class was particularly boring that day, and, well, one thing lead to another. “you will have to stay here after hours to clean the mess you made. you will also stay in during lunch for the rest of the week and write an apology letter to your art teacher. i will not tolerate this behaviour from you two anymore. especially you two. do not risk your grades for childishness.”
they bow their heads, still suppressing their laughter.
“now off you go, you two.”
ever since they both linked pinkies on an innocent preschool day, they were both made out to be one entity. two parts of a whole; soulmates. it was always taehyung and jimin, jimin and tae, those two, those two, them.
the aces of their class, the inseparable bunch. place them at opposite corners of the classroom and they can still communicate (they have a language advantage with the asl they've learnt, that's why they're cut some slack). taehyung gets hit by a dodgeball in phys ed, jimin feels his nose pang in chem lab. sometimes it creeps people out.
“honestly, it could be worse.”
their obnoxiously preposterous yearbook photo together got captioned ‘most likely to host a talk show together’. the head of the yearbook committee preferred ‘most likely to get married’.
“at least our mums won’t know.”
“yeah, try hiding this from the laundry basket.”
taehyung’s giggles soon turn to a gasp when he feels more paint running down his back, turn to a louder gasp when a teacher catches them— again.
taehyung and jimin’s first detention
it’s two boys giggling under the sheets again, but not because of ghost stories and promises to visit mars.
taehyung and jimin promised that, if by the time they start senior year, they haven't gotten their first kisses, they’ll be each other’s.
they’re in jimin’s room, house silent on a warm september night. tomorrow’s their last first day of school.
“did you brush your teeth?”
“oh, fuck you.”
it’s not that they’re repulsive or anything. they’re both social and funny and attention grabbing and so loved by so many. it’s just that they’re not rushing, and they haven't found anyone who meets their romantic standards. it’s just how it is.
“you ready?” taehyung whispers, taking jimin’s pinkie in his. he’s not nervous. it’s just jimin. his jimin.
they get close, gasp when their lips brush, part and giggle again.
“come on, give me something better than that tae!”
taehyung rolls his eyes, cradling jimin’s cheek with their pinkies still linked, and a sun is born.
it’s nothing too cinematic but taehyung is ever the dramatic. jimin’s lips are plush like jimin is and soft like jimin is and jimin like jimin is.
his eyes are still closed when it’s over but he can feel jimin smiling next to him.
“so that was that.”
and they’re giggling again.
taehyung and jimin’s first kiss
it’s least expected when it comes.
in a flurry of bitersweetness and new beginnings, taehyung and jimin’s college acceptance results come in on a nervous saturday evening.
they’re both logged onto each other’s portals, deciding to read each other’s results instead of their own. they’re sat in the kims' dining room, laptops facing each other.
“we know you’re both smart and we don’t doubt you one bit, but keep in mind that we love you and we’re proud of you regardless of what comes out.”
taehyung understands the tears in jimin’s mum’s eyes, his own having welled up too. growing up is exciting but it’s scary. hitting landmarks is rewarding but it’s scary— what's next?
jimin smiles at him when they link pinkies, his own seemingly more slender than jimin’s fingers that never outgrew the chubbiness. with a nod they both refresh the web page, they both gasp, they both look up, and they both cry.
it might be the overwhelming flurry of emotions.
“you got in!”
“oh my god, you got in!”
they scramble to stare at the screens, now side by side, pinkies still linked.
they cheer along their families, tears of joy and pride streaming down their faces.
they hug like they've never hugged before, and taehyung’s heart might just burst. “oh my god, i love you so much.”
taehyung’s first love
it grows silently and steadily in taehyung’s chest, blooms just like cherry blossoms in the spring.
to him, it’s beautiful.
his childhood best friend, his soulmate.
he already knows so much, loves so much about him. what's more to add but a little romance?
jimin was always his, is always his, they’re always them. what could go wrong?
“tae, this is kim namjoon. joonie, this is my best friend taehyung.”
“hello, taehyung-ssi! i’ve heard a lot about you.”
taehyung couldn't say the same. the concept of secrets never existed inside the bubble of them. or so he thought.
the optimism in him says 'ha, kim namjoon! he talks about me more than he talks about you but oh my god i’m his best friend and his soulmate and i didn’t know he was seeing someone until earlier today and i’m his best friend and his soulmate and i shouldn’t be in love with him but alas.'
the optimism in him isn't so optimistic anymore.
taehyung’s first jealously
the problem with kim namjoon is that he’s really hard to dislike. the human version of a baby giraffe but ten times more buff and a hundred times more intelligent and probably a thousand times more cute (sorry giraffes). he’s wise and funny and a mess of limbs, strikingly handsome and so, so good to jimin. taehyung couldn't pick a flaw if he wanted to.
taehyung lays on the sofa in jimin’s studio apartment two floors under his own, listening to his lover best friend read a poem written to him from his own lover. the ache in his heart is a constant that he’s used to by now.
“that’s so cute, what the fuck?”
he humors himself when he thinks that sometimes the glint in jimin’s eyes and the blush on his cheeks were once meant to be directed at him.
“i know,” jimin sighs, and he knows the never were. “i might be in love with him.”
oh.
taehyung’s first heartbreak
taehyung and jimin are 20 when their pinkies stop finding each other. it starts with “sorry i promised joonie this” and then “i have an assignment due an hour” and then “i’m busy, maybe later” until two semesters passed and they haven't said a full sentence to each other.
they’re seniors again and the crescents in jimin’s eyes turn to shadows and the happiness in his system is now an unhealthy amount of caffeine and sodium and “i promise i’m eating well, eomma.”
(joonie— sweet sweet joonie— makes sure he eats a full meal at least three times a week)
they’re seniors but they’re not giggling under sheets anymore and making promises nasa can’t fulfill and kissing bruises and cursing rocks.
jimin’s twenty one and taehyung wakes up crying because he doesn’t know whether to text him or knock on his door because he doesn’t know if it pains him more to break the eighteen-year tradition of being the first to congratulate him, or to act so casual about it.
the cupcake in his hand stares sadly at him when namjoon (of course) opens the door to jimin’s apartment with a “shhh he’s still asleep, do you want to help me surprise him?” but judging from the way his sweatpants hang low, he figures it wasn’t really an invitation.
he lies about a morning class and namjoon, for the first time ever not smart enough to realize it’s a sunday, lets him go.
taehyung’s first loss
it’s graduation day and there's a bitter taste coursing through him because all he’s known is to function in an educational environment for the past twenty years.
there’s tears in his mothers eyes and tears in his own because “i’m a big boy, eomma, i have the degree to prove it!”
there’s a smaller smile, a sadder one when taehyung’s dad calls jimin over for a picture for their collection, “look at you both growing up together like this.” and there’s bitterness like static in his head because the past three years were nothing near 'together'.
jimin learns that taehyung has gotten a job offer in london and is going there in a few weeks, ready to take on the real world. for the first time, he wasn’t there to plan that with him.
“it’s okay, jimin-ah. i promise we’ll stay in touch.”
taehyung’s first (first?) broken promise
taehyung is twenty five and by his side is a boy with stars in his eyes and the cosmos coursing through his veins, but they don’t quite come from the same galaxy as the ghost of the pinkie wrapped around taehyung’s.
(the pinkie taehyung used to be wrapped around)
he knows, oh, jeongguk knows of the strings of taehyung’s heart that were ripped out of him and left behind in seoul, but he loves him regardless.
taehyung loves him, too.
he knows he won’t live in the phantom of the past forever and his heartbreak would mend and he let it. he let it so gracefully be cradled and taken care off by a boy who could scare off kids at the park and then have tears well up in his eyes because “i didn’t mean to scare you, here's some money for ice cream, please don't cry.”
but there are days where taehyung wishes he still had his best friend. a vague tweet or facebook status update weren’t enough to have them reconnect.
their chats were full of fake interest until they were only birthday wishes with a singular exclamation mark instead of multiple emojis and memes.
there are days, however, when taehyung is fed up of not being the center of his own universe.
so he loves jeongguk and he loves him deeply. he loves the art he makes and the job he works and the city he lives in and the apartment he’s turned into a home with jeongguk but not the neighbor’s angry cat, he can get away with not loving one thing.
taehyung’s first
taehyung is tagging along to a seminar that jeongguk is attending, and by attending they mean giving up halfway through and waiting outside the lecture hall until the concession stand is mantled.
he realizes how much he’s in love with jungkook during their discussion about what they heard from the speaker inside the hall from the five total minutes they were both paying attention. he tells him as such, earning an “i know, hyung. i’m stupidly in love with you, too.”
he learns to love the giggles that are a different pitch but maybe just the right tune, the new tattooed pinky around his own, the heart beat that lulls him to sleep every night, the idiot trying to smuggle finger-sized hot dogs from the snacks table set up for people who took the energy into attending more than five minutes of the seminar.
he’s content with his lover, with life as he knows it now. until he’s not.
“kim taehyung, is that you?”
he feels his body freeze because he really really liked namjoon but he really really wanted him to be kept in his past.
“namjoon-hyung! what are you doing here?”
he learns that namjoon was one of the guest speakers (of course he was), and taehyung and jeongguk didn’t bother or care to look at the names listed on the brochure they were handed (of course they didn’t).
they catch up politely and jeongguk gets introduced, and the “oh, i’m really happy for you!” leads to the inevitable “so is jimin with you tonight?”
namjoon, ever the awkward, manages to stumble out an explanation that they were no longer together.
oh.
a couple of emotions course through taehyung’s system, none of them quite identifiable by him.
smugness, that the perfect couple wasn’t so perfect?
sadness, that his ex best friend went through what seems to be a tough break up?
guilt, that he wasn’t there to help him through it?
hope— hope? of course not. of course not, never. he has someone. he loves someone. he can’t be hung up on something long lost.
taehyung’s first lie
“i’m sorry, jeonggukkie. you deserve so much better. i’m so sorry.”
taehyung is twenty seven and he’s in seoul again. his trip back was based on false hope, on sheer faith of mending something that was long broken— was it even broken to begin with?
he hasn't heard from jimin— of jimin— in the past two years, having cut off all activities on social media after cutting off jeongguk’s heartstrings.
he’s at the town hall waiting for some necessary paperwork to move into his new apartment, excited to be back where his parents are, where his life was, where he’s had most of his firsts and most of his memories.
he’s hanging onto false hope of reuniting with jimin. did he move back in with his parents like he’s always wanted to?
will they rekindle their friendship? their bond? their love?
taehyung barely registers the shock he feels when he’s called into the room, barely hears the hum of people and the crackle of fax machines.
he doesn’t even remember he works in this field.
and then he wonders; does he still know who jimin is? does he still have the universe coursing through him? does he still make promises he can’t keep?
he walks over to the counter, met with eyes so dull they blend into the shadows underneath them, skin so pale he might as well be faced by a wall.
does he know who jimin is anymore?
“hello, my name is park jimin, how may i be of assistance today?”
there is not one ounce of recognition in his eyes. it seems like neither know the other anymore.
taehyung’s last silver of hope