"I'm neither painful nor lonely, happiness is all self-talk. I can't stand something more complicated..."
~Blue-BigBang
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He barely slept. When he would fall asleep, he would dream about Appa again, about that doctor dragging him away. Only reason he slept at all was because eventually, he dreamt about something else, about something he liked--Hana. He dreamt about Hana painting words across a large white canvas in blue lettering. The words were vague, words like, Glass, Cards, Space, Connect, Butterfly. He wasn't sure what any of that meant even after he woke up. It sounded like random words, but for some reason, they seemed to mean a lot.
"TAEHYUNG!" Jimin yelled, running around the corner and leaping from the doorway to Taehyung's bed, landing on top of Taehyung and knocking the breath out of him. "Your tutor is here, and you're sleeping in?"
He hadn't planned that. He wasn't really sleeping anyway.
"Oh, did you need a minute, Taehyung?"
Taehyung looked up to find Jin looking around the corner of the doorway, wearing black dress pants, a white shirt and a red sweater-vest outlined with white and black, reading glasses on the edge of his nose, and mouth full of powdered doughnut judging from the powder still on his lips.
Why couldn't everyone come in after they were sure I was awake? "Yeah. Just a minute."
Jin smiled, "Okay, I'll be waiting downstairs." Then he went back around the corner and Taehyung heard him walk back down the hall.
But Jimin stayed where he was. "Taehyung, If you're depressed. if that's why you've been hiding in your bed all day, I'm your brother, you can tell me that kind of sh*t, I wouldn't mind."
Taehyung shook his head, "I'm fine." He lied. That's all it was, a lie, he'd been thinking over it too much to be fine.
Jimin frowned, getting off Taehyung before taking off his snapback to run a hand through his hair, looking at the ceiling for a moment. "Yeah..." He didn't continue, though it sounded like he wanted to.
Jimin left the room without another word, and Taehyung got the feeling he said something wrong. Jimin can probably tell, he'd seen it enough, he'd be able to tell when someone was lying about how they felt.
~~~
After getting dressed, in a simple white tee-shirt and jeans, he headed downstairs where Jin was sitting on the light blue couch while Jimin sat in the recliner.
When Jin heard Taehyung coming down, he turned and smiled and patted the seat on the couch next to him. Taehyung walked around the couch and sat, Marshmallow bounding up and leaping onto his lap not long after he did so.
"So, you might have been mislead." Jin started, clearing his throat, and looking from Taehyung to Jimin. "You see, I'm a spy."
Jin sat absolutely straight faced, Jimin raised an eyebrow. Taehyung just started petting Marshmallow.
Jin grinned. "That was a joke, you could have laughed." he pouted, upset that no one got the joke. "But really, you've been mislead, I'm not here to tutor anyone, Mrs. Park asked me to watch you."
Jimin groaned and threw his head back. "So babysit? You're going to babysit us? Really? Mom asked you to do this?"
Jin nodded. "Yup. Kinda last minute, but she said it was urgent. And also to not open the door for anyone and to screen calls but not answer them. I don't really know why she asked, but eh, I owe her a few favors."
Jimin was obviously even less pleased with that, groaning louder. "Me and Tae are 18, what do we need some handsome guy dressed like a nerd hanging around for?" Jimin said, using air quotes for the word 'handsome'.
"Handsome? Yeah, I know. But I feel better knowing you won't be home alone judging by what Mrs. Park's instructions were, sounds serious the way she put it." Jin said with a shrug.
Taehyung absently pet Marshmallow's soft fur, not looking up. He had a guess. What if that doctor calls? What if he invites himself in? Mrs. Park was trying to keep Taehyung away from that doctor, maybe because she knew about how the doctor made him feel, or maybe because if the doctor came back, he might just take Taehyung away right there, and Mrs. Park wasn't around to stop it. But it was the doctor, definitely that doctor.
I don't want to go, please don't let them take me, please have told Jin enough that he won't let even the doctor in.
It didn't take a lot to remember what the doctor was like, with that demeaning tone of voice of his, that white coat and all those needles and pills and... If anything, he remembered all the medication, if he saw that doctor, it meant higher dosage, different drugs, new techniques to get rid of his 'mental instability'.
Taehyung shivered involuntarily at the thought, and only when Jin reached over and shook his shoulder did he hear that he and Jimin had been trying to speak to him.
"...TAE!" Jimin said, looking at him wide-eyed, almost annoyed. "Dude, find hold of reality and get a grip!"
"Taehyung, are you alright? You don't look alright..." Jin said, frowning.
Taehyung nodded. "I'm fine. I was just thinking." Thinking about that hell, thinking about what might happen, thinking about that horrible person.
"Thinking?" Jin asked. "What were you thinking about?"
Then the phone rang. Despite the instruction to not answer it, everyone got quiet when it rang, the only sound other then that was the sound of Kyung-mi coming down the stairs as no-one answered.
"Aren't one of you going to get the--?" Kyung-mi asked, going around to the kitchen. Only stopping because Jimin got up and grabbed her wrist.
"Wait, don't. Just wait." Jimin said, whispering. The room felt so quiet, the only appropriate thing to do was whisper, it seemed like. The silence was so still, and absolute, they could have heard a pin dropping.
The phone continued ringing for a bit, then switched over to voicemail, the voice on the line was somewhat familiar. Familiar enough to make Taehyung's blood run cold.
"Mrs. Park, I advise you to be reasonable. Hopefully, you've seen a bit of it after that show of absolute ridiculous lack of emotional control. I'll have you know, I'm talking to your superiors, and you're in danger of being terminated should this behavior continue. Kim Taehyung is beyond help, I thought we came to this agreement, but I suppose not, since you insist to bring your feelings into it like you've always done since your husband left you. Adoption is out of the question, Kim Taehyung has killed a man, either you give him his medication or I'll have to take action for your own safety. Even someone of your overemotional reasoning must see he's insane, dangerous, and not fit to be among other civilized people. Please call me back so we may discuss this like civilized people."
There was a click, and the message ended.
By then, Taehyung had his eyes shut tight, crying too hard, shaking too much, making too much noise to even hold Marshmallow, who had leapt out of his lap.
"Tae..hyung?" He heard Jin say, the next moment he felt him hug him.
"Oppa? Taehyung? Is..." He heard Kyung-mi start.
"I don't want to go!" Taehyung heard himself saying, practically screaming. "I hate him! I hate him! He's going to kill me! He's a lying Bastard! Don't let him take me away, don't let him come back, I..!" Taehyung couldn't speak anymore, he was crying too hard.
It hurt. It hurt too much. The words felt like being gutted alive. Evil. That's what that doctor was, to say all those things, and then insult Mrs. Park, and then act like he controlled how everyone should act, like emotion wasn't a part of being human, like Taehyung would actually hurt anyone. I would never, I couldn't I'm not crazy, I'm not beyond help.
"Hey...Hey... Taehyung, it'll be alright, it'll work out..." Jin said, still hugging him. "Try to Calm down. Breathe. in, out. Mrs. Park is probably finding a way to fix it... Damn, I should have just unplugged the phone."
I don't want to take the pills, I don't need the pills, if I take them again, everything will feel numb, I'll feel dead again, they'll stuff me in a straight jacket and in that white room. That damn white room. Torture, that's all it ever was.
"Oppa, don't cry...Oppa...I'm sorry for everything, I love you, don't cry. Eomma won't let him take you..." Kyung-mi hugged him too.
Jimin had been quiet, until he heard another phone, sending out a call instead of receiving it. "Mom? the doctor called and said more bullshit...Yeah...the noise?...That's Taehyung crying. It hit him kind of hard...it hit all of us kind of hard... I don't think he's going to calm down. God, Mom, don't cry... I just don't think I can take it if you cry too... Could you maybe stop by here on your way?"
~~~
When Mrs. Park came through the front door, the first thing she did was go straight over to Taehyung. He hadn't stopped crying, he'd stopped yelling and screaming, but the tears didn't stop, he couldn't get them to stop no matter how hard he tried.
Jin had brought him a blanket and a glass of water that Taehyung had yet to touch, his hands were still shaking too much to pick it up without spilling it all over.
She knelt in front of him, trying to make eye contact with him. "Honey...whatever he said..." She stopped, turning to look at Jimin who'd been sitting in the recliner with his elbows propped on his knees, looking down at the floor. "What did he say?"
Jimin looked up at Taehyung with a sympathetic look, reading every bit of hopelessness that Taehyung was practically emanating. "I won't say it out loud."
Mrs. Park went over to Jimin, and he whispered it to her.
Meanwhile, Jin took the water off the coffee table and held it for Taehyung to take, "At least drink a little, Taehyung, you're dehydrating yourself..."
Taehyung didn't say anything, just closing his eyes, a set of tears rolling down his cheeks as he did so. I don't care, I don't feel like it. What does it matter?
Across the room, Mrs. Park gasped, having heard the entirety of what the doctor had said by now. "He said WHAT?! That Son of a b*tch!" Mrs. Park covered her mouth immediately after, then went back to Taehyung, kneeling in front of him again, this time trying to hold his hand, "He's just trying to scare someone, he can't do any of that, he can't, nothing he said was true. Believe me, Taehyung, it's a lie, just a bluff...Taehyung..."
He'd been shaking his head 'no'. "T-the t-things h-he s-said...p-pills... n-not t-true." He tried to speak, to say exactly what it was he was thinking. He said such terrible things about you, it made me so sad, it hurt to hear him saying that just to get me back to that white room, just to get me taking pills. He's not trying to scare anyone, I'm scared already, he's just being a bully, a blackmailer. Everything he ever says is a lie.
But I'm scared. Everyone accepts his lies as the truth. Just like Jae-hwa, just like the police chief.
He said none of that. He couldn't, his voice was too choked with tears.
Mrs. Park squeezed his hand. "I'm working on it, sweetie, I'm working on calling his bluff, don't let anything he says affect you like this, you're better then him." She said, tone soft and gentle.
Taehyung tried to slow his breathing, stop the tears, If everything was fine, everything was going to work out, then why did he still feel this aching in his stomach that it wouldn't?
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A/N: Hello, Hello~ Tell me what you want right now~ I'mma give it to you girl, right now~
Thus starts the birthday stuff, you guysss~ ^o^)/ Because I happen to be writing a Taehyung fic >.> kekekekekekeke, It's a coincidence, I sweaaarrr (that sounds extra suspicious >.>)
OH AND YAY~! WE'VE REACHED 24K READSSSS also, I like a couple of songs by 24k, like, just so you know, because----- OMG, i HAVE THE BRAIN OF A CHIPMUNK #SoOffTrack25/8 What I WANTED to say was that since it's at this ironic number, let's do something fun?? Like a Character Q&A? idk, I'm lame, but tell me what you think :3
OR,
I've been thinking over adding a playlist, but like, this book only has 8 or 9 chapters to go. Neri, what would even be the point??? But if you guys want it~Maaaaaaaybe :3
~Neri~