To What Was Ours

xi (yoongi)

Behind his eyelids, he knew that soft imitation lighting warmed the color of his skin. Beneath his feet, the ground was solid, yet not smooth. Plush, like carpet. The sound of an air conditioner kicking on confirmed his suspicions. He reached back and his hand found the edge of a desk.

Yes, he was inside, and perhaps that was better than the outdoors, perhaps there was more stability to share between four walls and a roof, but he only knew of one place that burned that specific candle, because lavender was meant to be the prime example of aromatherapy. He took a step forward and his calf met a coffee table he knew was rich mahogany and stained with tears and tea rings. He knew that if he lowered a hand he'd find balls of yarn, a tissue box, fidgeting toys, and other miscellaneous objects with pleasing textures. The desk behind him had a notebook, somewhere, with his words written from another's hand. On the opposite side of the table, a deep blue couch's cushions sank in and the olive blanket laid over the back had hugged the deepest winters. He knew all of this without opening his eyes. He knew it like the back of his hand, like the scar on his index finger's knuckle.

He knew it like he knew sorrow and pain.

Therapy was a sore subject for many. A very thin line between an objection and a quick surrender. He was never one against it. He was closer to an advocate - telling his friends, family, fans, to seek the help that they needed, to speak clearly when one needed to be heard. But it's different, being the trusted friend, the role model, the one gently guiding a shoulder. It's different from when your shoulder is the one being held, and the hand on top is heavy, words all soothing but the weight pushing you into the floor.

He never realized even the most careful concern could be a walk to the gallows. Not until he stared up at the noose. Until it stared back.

Standing in the session room invoked familiar emotions. Like when he was on stage and he exploded into a confident, carefree, blend of loose limbs, or when he walked through his family's house door and leaned into his mother's touch and obediently did as told, a different side of him emerged. Immediately, the defenses set in. He readied himself for a grueling hour of facing pain he thought had blown away, until he was broken down, and didn't want to leave. Was too scared to face the outside world. Except he opened his eyes and his doctor was nowhere to be seen.

She was older, twice as many years written in her skin as he, and only somewhat looked the part. In the fine lines of her face, maybe, but not the glint in her eyes. As though there were always magnificent secrets waiting to be found.

He waited. She never seemed to share.

Her history was not all that tragic. A failed marriage, divorced parents, a bully in high school. Yoongi thought it to be ridiculous. She, who knew nothing about hospital floors and the echoes of a mostly forgotten laugh, was meant to counsel him, an all-knower. Possibility appeared to be out of the realm. No strings were attaching them except an insurance number and an NDA.

Except she managed to know him better than he knew himself. At every dead end, she'd find a door. With every stutter, she'd form crystal. He was enthralled; eager to know how a few years of school prepared one for it all. She said it was experience, but when he asked if he was like any other, she said no. Yet all his emotions were connected to a name, catastrophizing, all-or-nothing, minimizing, and no longer were they foreign, strangers that knocked at his window and door. They were abstraction, down the hall, overgeneralization, downstairs, black-and-white, upstairs. All except for one. They were a mystery across the road.