Beautiful Crime || DoTae

Chapter Five

Taeyong furrowed his brow. He couldn't remember anything that had happened, ever since he arrived back at their shared apartment alone. It was all a haze. But Doyoung was worried, so something must have happened. He was stumped. The way that the younger man was talking, Taeyong wasn't so sure if he wanted to know what had occurred. "Did something happen? Why am I here?"

"You don't remember? Well, that's probably for the best..." said Doyoung, and he frowned. "It was an overdose, but Taeil said that it was mild. You're lucky, all that he needed to do was make you throw up again, and he gave you some activated charcoal to help."

"I overdosed?" asked Taeyong.

He was in disbelief at his own action. As Doyoung jogged his memory of what happened the night before, some of the cloudiness in Taeyong's mind cleared. He couldn't remember much, but what he could recall felt so foreign to him—like it wasn't something that happened to him, but it was something that he was spectating. He pushed himself up from the bed, careful to not move the tube from the intravenous drip too much.

"I came back from Neo City after you'd taken the cocaine, but once I managed to get to you, you kept switching between being conscious and unconscious, so I drove you here," Doyoung explained, and he reached out to place his trembling hand on Taeyong's. "I thought I was going to lose you."

Taeyong couldn't find the words to comfort Doyoung and say that he'd never die in such a pathetic way, because he himself wasn't too sure if that was true. He sighed, staring at the wall ahead of him. It was most certainly a wake-up call. Hearing Doyoung say his name, Taeyong was snatched out of his thoughts and thrown back into the present.

"I know that you think it's alright, and that you've been acting normally, but... I don't think you're okay. I think we should think about a long-term solution to your addiction, and your trauma—"

"You think I'm broken," he interjected, and he snickered. "First it was Taeil, now it's you."

"No, Taeyong. I'm worried about you. I don't think you're broken, but if you continue brushing everything off like this, you will be. I don't know if it was an accident, or if you're going through something more, but I'm not going to let you overdose again," said Doyoung. "I think you should go to rehab, at the very least. But... I think you should see a therapist."

It humoured Taeyong to realise that Doyoung truly saw him as something fragile and delicate. If he was going to be pushed to his breaking point and finally lose whatever inkling of sanity remained in his head, then it would have happened long before that moment. He laughed at the latter, shaking his head in the process. If Doyoung thought that he was crazy, he could show him crazy. "So, that's all I am to you? A fucking nutjob."

"Stop twisting what I'm saying!"

"I don't know if you've forgotten, Doyoung, but there's a child who's probably going through hell right about now. If you think that I'm going to check myself into a fucking madhouse, then you're wrong," said Taeyong. "I'm going to find that child, even if it will kill me. I'm not a pushover."

"You need help, Taeyong. Noctis can find her. Kun is already trying his hardest to track her down," said Doyoung. "I understand that you want to save her, but you need to save yourself first."

"Oh, save me that bullshit. Noctis doesn't have enough manpower to afford to lose me right now. I'm not going anywhere," he said, and he sighed. "If I agree to consider going to the loony bin after we've found Hyejin, will you shut up about it? You're wasting valuable search time right now."

Doyoung pressed his lips firmly into a line, and he looked at Taeyong with narrow eyes. "Fine. But I expect you to stay as far away from cocaine as you possibly can, okay? No fighting in the Arena, either, because it seemed to change something about you."