"Life is too ironic to fully understand.
It takes sadness to know what happiness is.
Noise to appreciate silence.
And absence to value presence."
In which a Kleptomaniac, Sadist, and Nerdy College Student find each other in the dead of night.
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"I'm destroying myself so other people can't"
Taehyung didn't know when he felt a presence, but the despicable feeling of it hadn't wavered since he ran away from the alleyway and ended up crying at his doorstep.
Maybe it was the way the moonlight shone so brightly against his closed eyelids, invading his dream and leaving a sparkly trail of untouchable dust behind. Or maybe it was the devastating silence that surrounded his home, no creaky floorboards and walls when the house settled, no washing machine ending it's spin cycle.
Maybe it was the constant sound of footsteps coming from different places in the house. The hushed voices, the sound of the front door opening and closing again; all of which he heard.
Hearing this, however, didn't unnerve Taehyung in the slightest. That, he found, was the weirdest sensation he had felt all night. The unconcerned feeling of nothingness Taehyung experienced while laying rigidly by his brother's side could almost be considered surreal.
And just maybe this was because he had an idea of who the two people were stalking around his house.
Or at least what he assumed was two considering he heard two different footsteps trailing in different directions. Just like in the alleyway, one moved with stealth and was barely noticeable while the other made harsh contact with the ground.
Taehyung basked in the feeling for a little before he began counting. An odd thing to do, but Taehyung began counting the moment he heard steps echo throughout the household. Counting, like many other things, had become a subconscious action that was likely formed in his childhood. He was obsessed with counting things, keeping track of when actions were taking place, because if anything, that was the only thing he could be in control of, the time.
So when he heard the distinct sound of soft footsteps, he counted how long they were walking. He counted the minutes it took for one of them to reach his brother's door, then stillness. Both pairs of footsteps had stopped moving, but in two different places. Taehyung had a feeling that the farther person was in his room or close to it.
He heard the handle rattle as the person opened the door, a breath, silence, the click of the door being closed again, silence.
There were no footsteps of the person moving away until 5 more seconds had passed and once they did, only then did Taehyung move.
He peeled his eyes open and then took a quick glance at his brother, his still slightly scrunched up face as he dreamed. He then moved his gaze to the door and then the covers. The receding footsteps in the hallway only prompted him to move faster as he slowly slid out of the bed, careful to not make the mattress creak as he did. Softly tossing the covers off of himself and messily rearranging them on the bed. Taehyung looked for an escape route in the room.
Although he wasn't sure that the people who broke in were coming for him, that maybe there was a chance they were just robbers, Taehyung was ninety percent sure he was their desired target.
So after spotting the wide window with a desk pushed against it, Taehyung quietly made his way over while he counted.
One step, one second, two steps, one second.
The person's pace was increasing as they walked down the hallway and Taehyung knew he had to move faster if he wanted to make a clean escape.
Jumping on the desk as quietly as he could, Taehyung flicked the lock that clasped the window shut and hoisted it up using his arms. The tranquility he felt earlier was still there, the same new kind of peace that had overcome him in the bed. It begged him to slow down, slosh his arms every which way and just relinquish in the feeling of covers on his skin once again.
But Taehyung couldn't, and wouldn't, because he didn't know what these people (presumably) wanted with him.
So when his face was hit with the gentle breeze that wafted through the air when he opened the window, Taehyung didn't think twice as straddled the sill and twisted his body so he could grab the fire ladder left of the window. He moved his bare feet and placed them on the cold, black metal that was the ladder.He then grasped on with one hand and softly shut the window with his other.
Similar to a pulse that would pump through ears, Taehyung heard the steps of the people in his house retreating back to his brother's door.
Two steps, one second, two steps, two seconds.
The steps slowed down as they reached the door.
A creak, a huff, a muffled whisper, footsteps, careful rustling of sheets, silence, distant footsteps, the click of the door, silence.
Taehyung somehow knew that the two people in his house figured out he went out the window. Maybe it was the silence after they tousled the bedsheets near Namjoon's figure. He could picture them, two shadowy figures staring at the window, looking at the gently swaying curtains as they slowly came to a halt from lack of wind, the breeze that carried through the room and left it's stinging cold behind.
As Taehyung stood on the fire ladder tightly holding the metal against his fingers and palms while silently curling and uncurling his feet.
