Yes, Yes and YESSS, Taehyung’s Winter Bear inspired this fluff. I can’t stop listening to this song and no I don’t ever want to. The song is so soft and downy that it makes me want to cuddle and sleep. Relatable?
I hope you enjoy reading this piece as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Thanks, @jimins-baidi yet again for all your help! BORAHAE.
Summary/Scenario: Y/N narrating her first love story in the softest way imaginable.
Warnings: None. FLUFFYYYY FLUFFFFF just like TAE(dy) Bear!
GIF CREDITS TO RESPECTIVE OWNER
I was 5 when we had a new neighbor move into the house next door. As I watched them move their hefty bags and furniture into their new house, a boy probably the same age as mine, stood by our front yard. He held a huge yellow ball in his hand with his dear life as he looked at my makeshift swing set in awe. He didn't let the ball down even after he sat on my swing. He instead gave me his half-eaten strawberry flavored lollipop which I shamelessly gorged. That is how we became friends. This is my first and the fondest memory with TAEHYUNG, the boy I literally grew up with.
Taehyung and I were practically inseparable. We went to the same school, we took the same bus every day, we did our homework together and we played on our swing set even after we had evidently outgrown it. It had gone old and wary but we refused to let it go. We would spend days singing and playing in the sand around the swing. The swing held a very special place in my heart.
During our last days of middle school he asked me out and I unhesitatingly said yes. If he wouldn't have asked me out, I would have because I had the fattest crush on him. And just like that, he happened to be my first boyfriend ever. We lasted all through summer and beyond until he decided to go support his friend who was auditioning for an entertainment company. It was a sheer stroke of luck when he himself auditioned and got into this budding entertainment company.
Tae was extremely happy to have gotten into this company and to meet his new friends. And there was no reason for me to hold him back. I was happy for him as his best friend who practically saw him give everything he had for music. But as his girlfriend, it broke my heart to let him go.
When he came back to take his stuff and bid me final goodbyes I hugged him until I cried. Although I was happy for him, there was still a part of me that didn’t want him to leave me. If anything, he could take me with him. Yes, I was naive and also slightly dramatic enough to believe that it was even remotely possible. I didn’t say a word to him as I hugged him one last time and handed him a black box. I had broken my piggy bank that I was saving up for the Harry Potter book and instead bought him a watch.
I saw Taehyung leave and he looked at me with teary eyes as I waved him goodbye. Our final goodbye. I barely got to see Taehyung after that day.
Soon, I graduated high school and I started college almost immediately. It was farther away from home and hence gave me an opportunity to move to a metropolitan city. I saw Taehyung's life in picture and it gave me immense happiness and pride to know that his hard work had paid off. He has been passionate about music ever since he was a kid.
I assumed I had evaporated from his memory which wasn't a surprise considering how busy and hectic his life had grown over the past years as an Idol.
Fortunately, life got busy for me too. The buzz of the bigger city and the struggles to keep the grades up hit me hard. Eventually, I had grown to like this new city that I now called my home. And had I happened to have fallen into the city-dweller's patterns of living. Taehyung remained a secret all my life, my sacred little secret. Forever fresh in my memory lane.
The visits back home started to dwindle but skipping thanksgiving was inevitable. Thanksgiving was a big deal for my mother and I didn't skip a single one after having been moved. We didn't have as many relatives and the only constants for thanksgiving were the Kims. Both the parents had grown to like each other over the years and had become each other's best buddies.
The home was still the same and so was the old swing set in the front yard. It stood there unpretentiously, hitting all the nostalgic notes in me. It creaked as I sat on it but thankfully didn't go down. Of course, I had outgrown it and I didn't fit on it as comfortably as I did before. But somehow sitting there just took me back to much simpler, happier times of my life. Something about that whole place was soothing enough to not make me want to get up.
I laid my head gently on its cold chains as I closed my eyes recollecting all the memories I had as a kid in this same front yard. Swings were fun with Tae because we raced each other to see who would go higher. We had even scratched our initials on the seats and wouldn't sit on either's. Once Tae and I were racing against each other and I jumped off the swing in the spur of the moment. I scratched both my knees and arms and I had to be taken to the hospital. Tae got me superman band-aids saying they had superpowers and it will help me get better soon. A smile erupted on my face abstractedly as I reminisce everything softly.
"Nostalgic much?" I heard someone say behind me in a raspy voice.
My eyes perked up at the sound of feet rattling the fallen leaves, growing louder much to my surprise, as they approached me.
For a silly reason, I recognized the voice. Something within me twitched and I turned to see a tall figure dressed sophisticatedly with head overlined with a perky beret approaching me.
"Hot chocolate?" He said as he offered one of the mugs he was carrying. "I saw someone sitting on the swings from the window and kind of guessed it was you."
I smiled back as I took the cup of hot chocolate from his hand.
'It was him, for real. My childhood crush, my first boyfriend, My best friend. After so many years of no show. He was here.' I thought to myself.
He looked handsome as always and had grown beautifully to become this dashing looking young man. I could feel the butterflies flutter within me yet again after all these years.
"How have you been?" I enquired almost immediately. But I saw him move towards the other swing, observing and smiling at it.
"Very well," he said as he tried sitting on it. It creaked again and both of us laughed.
"This won't break, right?" he asked.
"We'll find out," I said simply as I looked at him settle down and swing slightly and fearfully. A bright boxy smile was pasted on his face and his giggles resonated in that lonesome place. He looked at me and I knew for sure that he thought of the same old memories as I did.
The first thing he asked me was if Nanna's ice cream shop was still functional. Nanna's Ice cream parlor was a small homemade ice cream shop couple of blocks away from our house. Both of us would coax our parents into buying us the famous triple chocolate sundae. It was a huge sundae with fudge, caramel and chocolate brownie at the bottom. Nanna was nice enough to add extra chocolate syrup because we were her favorite customers and also stringently regular. It was strange he remembered the small ice cream shop from years ago.
The conversations got obvious as we talked about our random things, our school friends, other townies and tidbits in all quarters.
Taehyung's parents had moved into a bigger and better part of the city a couple of years ago. But they were still skeptical about selling their old house for sentimental reasons. However, Thanksgiving family reunions were a ritual that none of them tried to breach.
After what felt like ages of retrospection and babbling, we heard someone approaching us.
"So y'all kids met finally, yeah? How long has it been since the two of y'all saw each other? Y/n, Tae has been asking about you ever since he came. He also made hot chocolate for you for which he spilled milk on the counter and his mom..." Taehyung's dad said as he put him on the spot.
Tae's dad was king of awkward moments and my dad was his predecessor. They were meant to be friends.
"Dad," Tae said, looking both confused and embarrassed at his father's overt statement.
"Y/n? The other day when I offered you coffee, you said something about your new "trendy diet". My dad said as he rolled his eyes at me before continuing "Guess this whipped cream is fat-free."
"As a matter of fact, it is," Tae said almost instantly.
"As a matter of FAT." Both the dads said in unison and rolled into a pile of laughter.
Tae and I looked at each other flustered as they turned red from laughing. It wasn't funny to both of us but dad jokes were a thing in this household.
We both smiled at each other anticipating what our moms must go through with these men.
"I think the food is ready and it's pretty chilly out here. You kids should come inside" my dad said as both the ajussi's headed swiftly towards the house still laughing over the same joke.
Tae helped me get out of the arthritic swing as he held his hand out for me. I took his hand in mine after what seemed like a million years and a sudden mysterious spark made the hair on the back of my hand, stand out. His wider hand and long, cold fingers enveloped mine and we fit into each other's hand like the last two pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. I looked at him for longer than three seconds before I got back to my senses and cleared my throat out of awkwardness.
The house smelled of mixed aromas. The table was filled with dishes the ladies cooked together, the dessert that the men boasted about making and from explicit laughter remembering all the embarrassing stories from the past.
With Tae and myself agreeing on cleaning up afterward, the parents started about their annual ritual of self-proclaimed card games tournament that lasted for hours at stretch.
As Tae helped me with the dishes, we continued talking yet again. His voice was smooth yet husky. And I liked the sound of it very much. What otherwise would have been the most boring and stodgy jobs of all time, with Tae helping me out made it seem fascinating. One thing led to another and our talks continued all the way until the last spoon was dried and put back in the shelf.
After we were finished doing the dishes I asked him if he wanted to go see if Nanna's ice cream shop was still open and he almost instantly agreed. We walked to the shop and ordered ourselves the famous sundae. We shared one as we were full from all the food we had had but the greedy kids within us had plunged out for Nanna's ice cream.
We walked back home and strolled in our backyard for a while. But the air was cold and it hit our noses making it tomato red. We sat on the cold chairs and both of us fell silent.
"You see, we didn't technically break up?" Taehyung said breaking the lull.
It was true. We had never officially broken up. But then, we weren't together as well.
I didn't know what to say to that so I just kept eating the leftover ice cream and just hummed in response. I am sure Tae looked at me and smiled as I had my face buried in the cup.
"So..., umm..., since we had not broken up, I was thinking.."
My eyes magnified in my socket as I stopped eating.
He was gonna break up with me, wasn't he? He was being nice so that he could break up with me. He was going to do that today, out of all the days. Just when I was having the best time of the year. The train of thoughts rummaged through without brakes.
"...we should continue where we left off," he said.
I was stunned. Did he just..? Are we..? Is this...? I thought to myself.
"Are you suggesting that we..? Like you and I? Like us? we.. umm.. get back together?" I asked with eyes as wide as the globe.
He laughed at my expressions and cleaned the ice cream stuck at the bottom of my lips with his thumb and licked it.
Was this a dream? I had no idea what was happening, but it felt good. I felt something warm and unfamiliar in my chest. And my heart raced faster than it should. It would have worried me some other day but today I didn’t care much.
"Maybe. Only if you want it." He said as he looked at me with those doe eyes.
My cheeks turned scarlet as I nodded ‘yes’ in response.
He smiled ear to ear as he shifted closer to me.
There I was again. Feeling like I was sixteen, blushing over the same boy who shared his precious lollipop with me. The same boy who was my first crush, my first boyfriend, my best friend. The night couldn't have gotten any better.
"Since I couldn't do something back when I was your boyfriend, I think it's the right time to do it." He said as he shifted in his seat to face me.
He held my face with both his hands and pulled me closer to him. He was as close as I had always imagined him to be. His gaze was soft and his breath was warm. It sent jolts to my bones enough to let the pores on my skin stand up. I tugged on to his shirt nervously. I have been wanting to do this ever since we first started dating but with him so near me my brain cells had frozen.
"You have no idea Y/n how I have been longing for this moment. And now that you are mine, I don't want to waste a single moment." Tae whispered.
I could feel my heart skip a beat or few as I closed my eyes gently. And as soon as I did that I could feel his lips pressed gently against mine. His hand gripped my neck as he deepened the kiss and his thumb outlined my jaw. It felt like I was dissipating into pixie dust. His lips were gentle but his body language was sturdy. I could feel him move closer to me. And in the heat of the moment, I almost tugged the collar of his shirt pulling him further closer. I could feel him smile in the kiss. As he let me go, I opened my eyes only to meet his. He brushed his nose against mine and it made me smile even harder. My cheeks had turned scarlet and I thought of no reason to hide it. The night grew dreamier as we sat there holding hands and smiling endlessly at nothing and yet at everything.
It had been two years since we 'got back together' from our hiatus relationship. Tae's work kept him busy most of the time. But I didn't mind that at all. I was still studying and interning and trying to make the ends meet, nothing special.
The long-distance was slightly bothering but not inconvenient.
Tae had planned an impromptu surprise for my birthday. He took me to Paris for a week which had been on my bucket list for ages. When in Paris we did all things Parisian style. Days and nights were spent eating and strolling along the streets of Paris. My interest in art and his in photography was a perfect blend and kept us on our toes all the time. I checked off all the touristy place we needed to see.
Tae booked the most snug-ly apartment in the outskirts of the city with a cozy balcony overlooking the beautiful houses as opposed to hotels which both of us weren't a big fan of. Throughout the week we were just eating and rummaging through itsy-bitsy streets of Paris and getting lost and being found again, having the time of our lives.
The day before our flight back home, I snuggled a little longer in our bed feeling lazy to do anything anymore. I heard some random clicks and I knew Tae was with his camera yet again clicking pictures from the balcony. I wanted to stay put in my warm cushy covers and didn't want to open my eyes just yet.
Moments later I dozed off again only to wake up to hear the strings of the guitar being pulled rhythmically to make a soulful melody.
Tae sang 'Winter bear' sitting by the edge of the bed with the guitar resting on his lap. The song that he later directed. I smiled listening to its soft lyrics and blushed heavily at Tae's gesture. I laid my head on the heap of pillows and closed my eyes basking in everything from the lyrics to the music, to Tae's sensual voice.
Our room stirred in a very vivid yet tender reverie.
I pecked his cheeks as he set the guitar down on the floor. Tae cheekily confessed that he wrote the song for me as my birthday gift. I kissed his face a million more times as I hugged him resting my head on his shoulder.
"Y/n?" he said softly as he kissed my forehead and plopped open a small black box out in front. I looked at him astonishingly as I tried to cohere the situation. My eyes widened and I choked on my own words as I saw a simple band shining in its ultimate glory in the velvety case.
"I can't imagine my life without you. So will you please, please, pleaaaaassssse end this suffering and marry me already, my Winter bear?"
I nodded as tears ran down my cheeks. He kissed me after he put the ring on my finger and I melted into it.
In that moment, the only thing brighter than the otherwise crispy Parisian sun that beaked in our bedroom was my heart.
Finally, after getting gazillion butterfly kisses from Tae, both of us cuddled and fell asleep feeling the happiest we could ever be.
