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Butter yellow and rose gold.
Warm summer sunsets lost to a youth long forgotten.
Time is funny like that.
The song on the record must have changed. It feels like only moments since Jimin pressed a smiling kiss to Taehyung’s lips.
He’d forgotten what that could feel like.
Like the sunsets.
Jimin was ready to move on. Taehyung would never begrudge him that. All he has ever wanted was for Jimin to be happy, to not let Taehyung drag him down.
He’d watched Jimin mature and age, but it was still such a shock to have that maturity turned on him.
“I’m ready to go, Tae. Now that I’ve seen you.”
“I’m… I’m not ready.”
Truth is, he’s not so sure he deserves whatever is on the other side of that door.
If Jimin has been granted a door to whatever or wherever is next, then Taehyung sure as fuck does not deserve the same.
Jimin hadn’t argued. He let the sadness roll off his shoulders as the tears tracked down his cheeks. Taehyung wonders how Jimin manages to do the impossible still after all this time. They talked as the sun came and went again.
Jimin had said goodbye.
Well- “See you later, baby. I’ll be waiting for you to catch up.”
Namjoon forgets to take his vitamins sometimes.
Most of the time.
Taehyung has taken to nudging the bottles until they fall off the counter, rattling around the floor as they roll. He feels a bit like an unruly cat.
He misses Jimin.
The apartment is so quiet without his chatter. Namjoon only briefly greets the plants as he waters them. He doesn’t usually forget.
Taehyung lies with him in bed on the mornings when his joints ache too much to rise with the sun. He presses deep into Namjoon when he takes his afternoon naps. He stays near when Namjoon shuffles around the apartment, keeping his wrinkled, arthritic hands busy.
He stares at Namjoon, still tucked into bed, the sheets still where his chest does not move.
There’s a deep indigo door, white ceramic knob catching the light from the window across the room.
“Hello?”
Taehyung turns in place.
He’s younger, though not as young as the first time he laid eyes on him. Somewhere in the middle. Handsome, distinguished.
“Namjoon?”
“Oh-“
They stare.
Taehyung can see the recognition in Namjoon’s eyes.
“Seems we’ve traded places,” Namjoon says around a dimpled smile.
Taehyung’s eyes dart back to the bed.
“Only fair. You were my guardian once.”
“Ah, but you’ve been my guardian for a long time, haven’t you?”
Taehyung shrugs.
He finds it hard to look directly at Namjoon. He seems almost too bright for his eyes.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Namjoon says.
“Ah, but we’ve met before,” Taehyung responds in an approximation of Namjoon’s own deep timbre.
“Your voice. I didn’t expect it to be so deep,” Namjoon laughs.
It makes Taehyung’s lips quirk. He bites it back.
“There’s probably a lot you don’t know about me.”
“It’s odd though, because I feel like deep in my soul I’ve known you for so long.”
Taehyung wonders if that’s from all of the times he’s slipped into Namjoon’s dreams, or if that’s just the way Namjoon is.
“You’re even prettier than in the pictures,” Namjoon murmurs.
It surprises a laugh out of Taehyung, loud and boisterous. It leaves Namjoon laughing as well.
“Can I touch you?” Namjoon asks, when their giggles die down.
Taehyung bites his lip but nods.
Namjoon crosses the room. The grey at his temples bleeds to pure black, filling in thick at the hairline. The deep set lines at his eyes disappear, the dimples in his cheeks the only dip in youthful skin.
He looks just like he did the first time they met.
Namjoon stops short of Taehyung, if he reached out, he would be able to run his fingers across Namjoon’s broad chest. Taehyung doesn’t think they’re close enough. Not after decades of finding warmth and comfort in Namjoon. He steps a bit closer.
Only the light from the window stretches between them.
“So young,” Namjoon mumbles, eyes tracing over Taehyung’s features.
“The same age I’ve always been.”
Their eyes connect. Namjoon’s tinged with a touch of sadness.
“You’ve been here this whole time?”
“Your guardian,” he says as if it’s common sense.
It chases away the sadness with fondness.
“It’s so easy to see how Jimin loves you.” It appears to knock something loose, and Namjoon begins looking around them.
“He moved on.”
It’s quiet while Namjoon considers this.
“That’s good. I’m glad.” He seems genuine. “But, what uh… why are you still…”
“Still here?” Namjoon winces sheepishly, but Taehyung just shrugs. “No door.”
This is the most he’s spoken in so long. Not since reconnecting with Jimin. His brain feels sluggish. Words caught in his chest.
“Never?”
“No. I had one once. I pushed it away and it never came back.”
“Why would you push it away? Don’t you want to move on?”
“I wanted to stay with Jimin. And you.”
“Taehyung-ssi-“
“Please,” Taehyung interrupts. “Don’t be formal.” It feels like barbed wire wrapping around his insides.
“Taehyung-ah.” It’s more stilted than when Namjoon had been speaking to a dead body.
“It was the greatest joy of my-“ well not really life- “existence. Getting to stay with you both. Watching how happy you made Jimin, how carefree he got to be. You’re a good man, Namjoon.”
“I’m just a man,” he deflects. “But, Jimin made me a better one, I think.”
Taehyung nods. “He’s good like that… speaks to how fucked I am that I still ended up the way I did.”
“Don’t say that, Jimin would hate to hear you say that.”
Finally fingers close around his wrist. It’s more electric than passing through a living body.
“I think…” Namjoon starts slowly, clearly thinking through each word before he says it. Taehyung has seen him do the same with Jimin during arguments, meltdowns, moments of immense empathy. Moments of compassion. “We’re all a little fucked, actually. But without shit, we wouldn’t be able to fertilize the flowers.”
Taehyung snorts. He feels pressure like he wishes he could cry. He, unfortunately, has not had the ability to cry in a very long time. He wonders about the volume of all those tears. If some unlucky person is out there crying them on his behalf.
“Fate was cruel to you, Taehyung-ah. You should have had more time. You would have bloomed beautifully, I just know it.”
Taehyung’s brow furrows. He brings his hand up to wipe at tears that are not there. Namjoon’s fingers still circle his wrist loosely, following in the motion.
Namjoon runs warm hands across Taehyung’s cheeks. It feels like summer sunlight. It feels like a full moon in autumn.
It feels right.
Like home.
“Will you sit with me for a while?” Namjoon asks.
Taehyung looks at the door looming in the corner. “Don’t you want to catch up to Jimin?”
Namjoon sits on the floor, leaning back against the foot of the bed.
“I’ve wondered what you were like since I was twenty-seven years old.”
“I’ve heard Jimin and the others tell stories,” Taehyung scoffs, but lowers himself down beside Namjoon, their knees touching.
“It’s not the same. Would you rather have a cup of coffee, or have someone describe it to you?”
Taehyung makes a face. “I don’t like coffee.”
Namjoon looks positively delighted by this knowledge. His dimples pop with his wide smile.
“See? No one’s ever told me that before.”
“I never played soccer,” Taehyung offers. It’s been many years since that moment, especially for Namjoon.
It takes a moment of quizzical staring before it must click for Namjoon. He laughs. “But there’s that picture of you and Jungkook with the ball. I just assumed I was right.”
“I don’t know whose ball that was. It was always just around. We used to kick it at each other as hard as we could when Jungkook had a bad client in the back room.”
Namjoon nods, a bit more somber now. Taehyung knows Jimin was not shy about what he did for a living in those days. Namjoon was always respectful to him and Jungkook and Hoseok-hyung.
It didn’t stop his fear when they would swap stories of some of the assholes they’d dealt with that week. In the end, Taehyung thinks it’s what drove Namjoon to push past his hurdles and finish his book.
“Can I ask you something?”
Taehyung nods.
“Jimin always wondered if you were leaving that day… were you?”
Taehyung smiles, small and mostly to himself. “Jimin asked me the same thing. You two really were made for each other.”
“And what about you?”
“Me?”
Namjoon looks at him, practically unblinking. It feels heavy, like it’s a physical touch on his skin. Taehyung isn’t sure anyone has ever looked at him like that, except Jimin.
“I’m the catalyst.”
“The catalyst…”
“Yeah. To make sure you two were able to find each other.”
He feels too exposed under Namjoon’s gaze. Even more so when Namjoon’s eyes soften, growing sad around the edges. It makes Taehyung look away.
“Taetae-“ Namjoon pauses as if to be sure the use of the nickname is alright. Clearly a kneejerk from hearing Jimin say it for so many years. It cracks something open deep inside of Taehyung. “You’re so much more than a singular moment in time.”
Namjoon’s fingers stretch and retreat before fully reaching out and grasping Taehyung’s hand in his own. Taehyung rearranges their hands until their fingers are laced together and places them in his lap.
“Your presence has rippled across so many lives, before and after your death.”
“I’m just some stupid junkie.”
“I wish I had been there just a little earlier,” Namjoon murmurs.
“You couldn’t have done anything,” Taehyung tsks. “And if not that time, surely another.”
Namjoon sits with that. Clearly an old guilt still weighing heavily on him.
“You deserve happiness all the same. Then and now.”
“It’s a little late for that,” Taehyung says playfully, attempting to lighten the mood. This is not a burden Namjoon should bear.
“It’s never too late.” He pulls their clasped up to his face, dips his head to press his forehead against their fingers. “Come with me.”
“What?”
“Move on with me.” Namjoon stands, pulling Taehyung with him. “I finally got to meet you, I’m not ready to lose you yet.”
“I can’t-“
“Why not? What’s left to stay here for?”
Taehyung feels like he’s falling. It feels like the crash after the high. He wants to run. He wants to hide. From Namjoon, from whatever lies beyond the doors. From himself.
He feels the hand slip from between his fingers. The gentle pressure moves up his arms and to his face. It’s on par with the best high working its way through his system.
“Aren’t you tired of being alone?”
It breaks him open. Tears crest over his lash line and it steals his breath away in a way he didn’t think he could experience anymore.
He cries.
Namjoon holds him.
He can feel wetness in his hair where Namjoon’s cheek is pressed so tight.
The moon comes and goes and they stay wrapped in each other's arms. Eventually Namjoon mumbles little things to Taehyung, thoughts he’s always wanted to voice to him, though in many cases Taehyung has heard him say those same things in passing to old framed photos of himself. Questions he’s always wanted to ask Taehyung, coaxing him into sharing little pieces of himself until it feels like Namjoon has half his soul embedded in his skin. The other half is with Jimin.
When Taehyung has finished crying himself out, his voice rough but no longer cracking when he answers Namjoon, he leans back in Namjoon’s arms. Their eyes meander over each other's features, quietly. A peace Taehyung has never really known.
“Can I kiss you?”
It startles a quiet oh out of Namjoon. Taehyung can’t bite back the little pleased smile on his face when Namjoon looks down to his lips.
“I can kiss you?” Namjoon asks.
“I’ve only felt your lips in dreams.”
Namjoon’s face scrunches a little bit in an echo of heartbreak. “Good dreams.”
“The best dreams,” Taehyung agrees.
Namjoon moves hesitantly and a little awkwardly, but eventually their lips meet in a chaste but emotionally charged kiss. They pull back for only a moment before pressing back in.
It’s not heated but it is heavy.
It’s decades of longing and distance and wishing they’d had a different set of circumstances. Of wishing they’d been able to know each other, to grow together, to love and live as a full set of three and not the broken couple Taehyung and Jimin had been before or the painstakingly mended but still scarred couple that Jimin and Namjoon had been after.
He wonders how good they could have been.
But love doesn’t fix everything, despite its best efforts. Taehyung would have had to learn what he’s been learning the last several decades. Would they have waited for him? Would he have ever found sobriety?
He can’t know what that life would have looked like, but he hopes he would have done it for them.
“Jimin used to dream of this,” Namjoon says, breaking a lingering kiss.
Taehyung laughs. “I know, I used to visit you both when I could.”
It leaves Namjoon gobsmacked but eventually he barks out a laugh. It sends Taehyung into giggles himself.
“I miss him,” they both say at the same time, causing another round of laughter.
“Should we go see him?” Namjoon asks.
Taehyung stays still. He weighs his thoughts. His heart. He measures his worth, but doesn’t know how he’s meant to decide if he’s found wanting.
“Huh.” It sounds like Namjoon says it to himself. Taehyung follows his line of sight back to where his beautiful indigo door stood tall. Except now it’s a set of midnight blue French doors, dotted with little constellations of stars.
Something about it calls to Taehyung.
He peels away from Namjoon slowly, growing closer to the door until he can run his fingers across the grain of the wood. It feels warm, where his own door had seemed so cold.
“Why did it change,” he wonders aloud.
“Two doors.”
“Huh?” He turns to look at Namjoon over his shoulder, his fingers still tracing stars.
“There’s two doors now instead of one,” Namjoon says standing shoulder to shoulder with Taehyung. “We could open them together…”
Taehyung blinks at the door.
He takes it all in. His fleeting little life. Watching the man he loves learn to love another man and in turn finding he might love Namjoon all the same. The endless loneliness, the moments with Jimin and now Namjoon that have made lingering worth it.
They’ve made all of it worth it in the end.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Namjoon asks, excitement punching out the syllables.
“Let’s go see Jimin.” Taehyung looks at Namjoon, taking hold of his hand.
Namjoon places his other hand on the copper handle. “Together?”
Taehyung grasps the other handle and nods.
The doors swing open to blinding light. Taehyung feels weightless, limitless, like he’s setting off on a grand adventure and like he’s finally coming home.
“It’s about time you two caught up.”