Shattered Glass | kth - Fic Announcement
Series Summary: They say time heals all wounds, but it's been eight years since you cut each other out of your lives and the pain is still sharp as ever. You were the best of friends, and a whisper of something more, but the future you once dreamed of shattered in the blink of an eye. Thrust back together by a twist of fate, you find yourselves torn between the past and the present as you struggle to pick up the pieces.
Pairing: idol!taehyung x idol!reader
Genre : idol!au (mostly canon-compliant), friends to enemies to idiots to lovers (these two will put you through the ringer), mutual pining, fluff, heavy angst, eventual smut, slow burn
Warnings: swearing, alcohol consumption, serious trust issues, physical violence (not with each other), mentions of past sexual abuse and infidelity, explicit sexual content; chapters will have their own warnings!
Taglist: Please comment or send an ask to be added!
a/n: I wrote half of this last year before getting pregnant with my daughter, but have been stalled out since then. I'm hoping that by posting this announcement I'll magically find the motivation to finish this once and for all :)
⋘ ──── ∗ ⋅ Taehyung ⋅ ∗ ──── ⋙
When Taehyung’s gaze landed on you, he nearly choked on his martini. The drink - his third of the night - was in clear violation of the personal rule he usually adhered to of having no more than two drinks while at any Big Hit-sponsored events. While his tolerance had improved significantly over the years, he still never wanted to take any chances, knowing how quickly a light buzz can morph into much more if you aren’t careful. Being that one inebriated idiot in a room full of mostly sober people was never a good look, but it was far worse when some of those people were your bosses or, if you were really having a bad day, members of the media.
And yet, there he was, well on his way to legitimate drunkenness.
You must have arrived recently because there was absolutely no way he wouldn’t have spotted you sooner. Your dress was bright red, the same exact shade of red as a stop sign, he couldn’t help but notice. It was form fitting, falling just above the knee, with a sweetheart neckline and halter tie strap. You’d paired it with matching red stilettos and a few simple pieces of silver jewelry. Your hair was up in one of those perfectly messy buns, your lips painted scarlet.
You and the other girls from Red Velvet were on the far side of the room in the middle of a conversation with the guys from TXT. You appeared to be telling some sort of story, having apparently just said something hilarious given the way the guys all threw their heads back in laughter. You were smiling back at them, looking confident and relaxed, elegant yet sexy, truly and utterly stunning.
And, just like that he was annoyed.
You would dress like that tonight, wearing something so eye-catching that it made it virtually impossible for him to not let his gaze linger on your figure every time he stopped staring into the bottom of his glass. You would act so boldly, waltzing in here like you owned the place, talking and laughing with his friends while he sulked alone in the corner. You would be completely unaffected by his presence, that is, if you even noticed he was there.
Watching with narrowed eyes as you leaned in to whisper something into Yeonjun’s ear, his grip on the glass in his hand tightened. You were the reason why he’d broken his two-drink rule within an hour of arriving at the party. In fact, you were the reason why he’d been drinking more and sleeping less and losing his grip entirely these last few months. Since the moment Bang PD told them of the acquisition, he’d been living in a constant state of low-level, but ever-growing anxiety.
He had long ago locked you in a box and thrown away the key, taking all that you once were and never would be and erasing it from his waking mind. You were meant to stay in there forever, but now here you were, crashing back into his life and threatening to ruin everything. Just looking at you was stirring up memories and feelings he hadn’t the slightest clue how to deal with, ones that were still sharp and terrible as ever, even after all this time.
As he took another recklessly large gulp of his drink, he seriously considered making a break for it through the emergency exit behind him. Clearly the two of you would cross paths sooner or later now that you worked for the same company, but he wanted to delay that reunion for as long as humanly possible. Having not had a legitimate conversation with you in almost a decade, he had absolutely no idea what he was going to say to you.
Despite the fact that you were both K-pop idols, and therefore members of a rather small circle, the two of you had done a remarkable job of avoiding one another over the last few years. Belonging to different management companies had certainly helped in that regard, as did the fact that you didn’t share any mutual friends. Although BTS and Red Velvet often attended the same award shows, there were usually so many people there that you didn’t run into each other. On the rare occasions when your groups had been forced to interact on stage or on the red carpet, the two of you had donned your most convincing smiles and pretended to be friendly, casual acquaintances.
The only truly meaningful correspondence you’d had since high school was three years ago when his grandmother died and you sent your condolences in a handwritten letter. It had taken him two days to build up the courage to open it. The instant he started reading, he broke down. There on the page before him, in the same neat handwriting that used to appear on folded notes tucked into his backpack, were the most heartfelt, sorrowful words.
You had met both his grandparents many times when you came with him to visit their farm in Daegu, but you’d always had a special relationship with his grandmother. Having never met either of your own, you said that she filled the hole in your heart by showering you with love and affection as if you were one of her own grandchildren. From the scattered blotches of smeared ink he could tell that you’d cried while writing the letter which absolutely shattered him. He hated it when you cried, especially when he wasn’t there to comfort you.
The letter he wrote in response was five pages long. Into it, he poured his entire soul, telling you how happy he was to hear from you and how much it meant to him that you’d remembered his grandmother. He told you that she always loved you and that she asked about you every single time he called to talk to her, even after you’d stopped speaking to one another. He recounted some of your fondest memories from the farm like that time you got stung by a bee on the tip of your nose and looked like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
He asked about your family, wondering if they still lived in Jeonju and if you were able to see them often. He asked how you’d liked living in New York City and mentioned how impressed he was with your English. He congratulated you on joining Red Velvet, confessing that he’d been following your career closely for the past year and was so proud of how seamlessly you’d filled the role of main vocalist.
And, he told you that he missed you. He told you he missed you so much that it hurt and that he thought about you every single day. He apologized again for the awful things he said to you that fateful day all those years ago, telling you he truly didn’t mean any of it and that he was just sad and scared because you were going to be so far away from him for so long. He said he wished more than anything that you could be a part of his life again. He left his phone number and all but begged you to contact him before signing the letter, ‘Love Tae’.
You never wrote back. You never texted. You never called.
Deep down, he had been holding out hope that you would come back to him one day, but your silence made him realize that was nothing more than wishful thinking. You had written out of respect for his grandmother, nothing more. You had moved on and carved out a new life for yourself, one in which he did not have a place.
You were no longer his best friend. You were no longer his princess. You were no longer his anything.
