Warnings: swearing, violence, mention of mental illness and death, mental breakdown, etc.
Namjoon silently entered the kitchen, his surroundings as quiet as death as it was deep into the night. Around two or three. The silence around the whole house told him that the rest of the men were asleep, and he was the only one who was awake.
He took careful and soft steps towards the fridge, eyes fixed on the pill bottle on top. As he went to stand in front of it, the moonlight coming in from the window beside him shone over his whole self, the dark shadows of the window pane falling on his outstretched hand as he went to take the bottle.
But before he could hold it, another hand, a much paler one, appeared beside his and snatched the bottle out of his grasp.
Namjoon let out a shout of shock before spinning around to see who it was, to find Yoongi standing across him, perfectly still, a hand holding up the pill bottle. His pale complexion made him look like a ghost in the moonlight, and his void expression made him even more frightening.
"What do you think you were doing?" Yoongi whispered, slowly raising an eyebrow.
He looked too calm for a situation like this. Too collected and unreactive for the tension that loomed over them in the atmosphere. Yoongi's question was greeted with silence as Namjoon looked at him, having recovered from his shock and was now coming up with a way to answer him.
He wasn't going to lie anymore. He'd not lie this time. He didn't care. He will gladly go wherever they'd send him now once they find out how gone he was. How he was never recovering again.
"I can't take this anymore," Namjoon whispered in response, looking straight into his best friend's eyes.
For a moment, both Namjoon and Yoongi seemed to see a flash of their past, when they first met in kindergarten and clicked immediately despite the fact that they were completely different. They remembered how they talked about how they liked boys despite being so young and wanted to grow up to find the perfect prince of their life. And how they'd still be best friends forever when they grow old, and then they pinky promised.
They rememebered running away from bullies in middle school, laughing as they managed to escape without getting beaten up after successfully insulting them. They used to test their limits and stand beside one another.
Yoongi and Namjoon had always thought they'd remain inseparable, and yet, they were here now. Fighting constantly and having no trust in each other.
It was heartbreaking for both, and despite Namjoon being too miserable and in pain and Yoongi too frustrated and angry, both of them felt the sting of not being able to keep their pinky promise that they made so excitedly and happily, two little five-years-old and seven-years-old younglings who had no idea that reality wasn't like anything they'd dreamt about.
And now, twenty-three years later, as they looked at one another, two grown men who'd gone through the worst, they understood how innocent and naive they'd been.
"What's going on here?"
The lights of the kitchen were switched on and Hoseok and Jimin appeared at the entrance, but Namjoon and Yoongi didn't avert eye-contact.
"What do you mean you 'can't take this anymore'?" Yoongi asked quietly, his eyebrows knitted into a frown.
"I won't fucking do as you tell me," Namjoon snapped, Yoongi's calmness frustrating him. "I'm not a kid anymore. I can make my own decisions and do what I want to. Stop controlling my life."
Yoongi stared at him, a pang of hurt stabbing his chest though he made no show of it.
"Hyung? Why are you all awake?"
Taehyung and Jungkook entered the kitchen in their PJs, hair disheveled and eyes drooping with sleep that immediately vanished when they saw Namjoon and Yoongi facing each other with tension clearly written in their faces. Hoseok and Jimin were watching them with anticipation, not daring to speak up or interrupt the other duo.
"What do you mean by me controlling your life?" Yoongi spit back in disbelief. "No one's controlling your life."
"Then what do you call this?" Namjoon asked, glowering at the shorter but older male. "Watching my every step and telling me what to do?"
"Please, I wasn't watching you," Yoongi scoffed, his pride holding him back from agreeing with the younger. "We heard you crying, and we came out because we were worried... to find you trying to throw the pills away again. You have your whole fucking life to live as you please, but right now, you're not in the perfect condition. Stop being so stubborn and let us take care of you, and then you're free to do whatever you want."
"What do you mean I'm 'not in the right condition'?!" Namjoon yelled, eyes filling with anger and hurt, but Yoongi didn't even flinch, rooted to his spot. "I'm as sane as any of you are! Just because Jin never left me behind doesn't mean I've gone mad or whatever! You're the one with mental problem here, Yoongi! Stop being so fucking annoying and controlling. Leave me alone! I don't care! Whatever you do, you can't fix me."
"Jin is not here," Yoongi gritted out, trying hard not to break down. It wasn't the right time to have a breakdown. "He left. He left us months ago. You're not over him. I know his leave was hard. It still is hard to believe it. I understand that, Namjoon. Just... just let us help you. We just want the best for you. Neither I nor the other boys mean to cause you to hurt. We care, all right? I might be bad at showing this, but I-I really care about you."
"If you really care, just leave me alone," Namjoon whispered warningly, trying to hold himself back for the last time. "I'm never getting well again, Yoongi. I'm a lost cause. I'm way gone than you can ever imagine. Give up on me and let me live the remaining days with Jin."
"It's not as easy as you think!" Yoongi retorted, tears of anger and frustration finally running free. "You... you're the most valuable friend I've ever got. I already lost Jin hyung. I can't lose you as well. Just... just listen to me this one time, Namjoon."
"I can't," Namjoon said, shaking his head, though deep inside, he hated seeing that such a reserved person like Yoongi was crying because of him. "Just let me go and be with my Jin. And you go your way. I've completely gone mad. I'm never getting better. I can feel it, Yoongi. Just let me be with my moon."
"I'm not giving up on you," Yoongi spoke in a broken whisper, frantically wiping his tears with his knuckles. "I don't know if you ever meant to keep your promise or not, but I'm not breaking mine. Whatever it takes to keep it."
"We made those promises when I was still whole and sane," Namjoon replied, shaking his head. "This is a completely different situation. I'm fucking mental now, hyung. Just forget about those promises and let me be happy with my Jin."
Still, Yoongi stood there, determined. "Jin is not here," he gritted out, holding in the pain the sentence he said caused him. "He's gone, Namjoon. He's gone."
"He'll only be gone when I forget him!" Namjoon shouted, eyes becoming slits. "And I'll never do that. He's right there with me!"
"He is just your fucking imagination!!!" Yoongi's scream of rage drowned down Namjoon's shouting.
Namjoon froze as did the other males in the room, all staring fixedly at the second oldest man, who'd grown red in the face, veins popping on his neck and forehead, teeth clenched together and expression taut with aggression, having finally lost his temper. Fear and pain had blinded him now, and as he finally let it all release, more tears sprang from his eyes.
"Jin's fucking dead!" Yoongi continued to shout, getting in Namjoon's face and grabbing him by the collar, shaking him. "He had died last year from a road accident and he had lost too much blood. Glass splinters had pierced his whole body and claimed his life! He's gone forever and he's never coming back, so fucking grow up and accept it!"
Just as he'd finished speaking, Yoongi's jaw was met with such an aggressive punch that it sent him collapsing and sprawling against the wall next to him, hands clutching his face in pain. The bottle of pills lay broken several feet away in pieces, all the white circular pills scattered all over the area.
"Yoongi!" Both Hoseok and Jimin shouted in horror, running forward to help him up.
Taehyung and Jungkook were about to join them but stopped for a moment when they saw Namjoon storming past them and out of the kitchen with a darkened face. Feeling extremely wary and upset, they turned to help Yoongi up with the others and make him sit on a stool.
"I-I didn't m-mean it," Yoongi sobbed out, his voice choked as tears streamed down his face, his hand cupping his jaw. "I just- I just l-lost myself. But I d-deserved that."
Nobody had never seen Yoongi cry like this in his sober state, and they knew that Namjoon really had him worried more than the rest.
"I agree that you were wrong to lose your temper and say such things to Namjoon," Hoseok said grimly, wiping away his tears with his thumbs before he cupped his face. "But the insistence that you deserved to be hurt is nonsense. I'm sure Joon's feeling as much regret as you are right now."
"I think... I think it's better if we just let him go." Everyone turned to look at Jimin, who nodded at them with a solemn face. "Yes, I mean it. Joon's been getting worse since he'd been brought back home. We should've given up on him long ago. He-... I hate to say this, but he's a lost cause. Joon hyung's never getting better. You can see that, r-right?"
Yoongi looked at Jimin's teared up expression, his chest aching painfully as he looked down and whispered, "There's n-no hope at all... huh?"
"No," Hoseok whispered, squeezing his eyes shut as a tear trickled down his cheek. "We need to accept that Joon will never be the same again. And as long as he's alive, let's just let him be happy, yeah?"
Yoongi nodded despite how hard it was for him to accept that they'd lost Namjoon too. The Namjoon they knew had died long ago when Jin did, and no matter how unacceptable it was, he wasn't coming back.
A sniffle interrupted the gloomy silence between the five young men, and everyone looked around to see Jungkook's eyes filled with tears.
"S-sorry," he mumbled, wiping a tear that glided down his face with a forefinger. "But sometimes... sometimes I just w-wish that I'd been the one in Jin hyung's place. I s-should've died instea-"
"No!" Taehyung shouted, bursting into tears as he hugged his boyfriend tightly. "No, don't say that, Kookie. We've lost Jin hyung and Joon hyung. We can't... we c-can't lose you. P-please, don't think I-I would h-have been okay w-without y-you, Koo."
"If anything, it's my fault," Jimin muttered, biting down on his bottom lip as he tried hard to hold back his tears. "If I'd protected Jin hyung-"
"It's nobody's fault!" Yoongi burst out, getting up and hugging Jimin tight as he cried. "It's just the fucking fate that did this to us! We were just m-meant to e-end up like this... R-right when we were happy and o-okay."
"There's no good in feeling upset about it," Hoseok sighed, covering his eyes with his hands. "L-let's just... let's just hope there's something better tomorrow. This is not the first time we have gone through shit. I know that we can find a way through this again."
"Fighting," Jungkook sniffed, resting his head on Taehyung's shoulder.
"Fighting," Yoongi answered, face buried at the crook of Jimin's neck as he seeked comfort.
All of them hoped that maybe in the morning, they'd wake up to find that what happened today was just a bad dream, and that Namjoon was slowly getting better.
But there was little chance of that happening now... Hoping that something like this would happen was not going to fool reality so easily.
°°°♡ °°°
Words: 2060
Guess what happens in the next part 💀