Eight Letters / Taegyu; Until the End

six

i've been hurt so i don't trust

word count; 1249

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"this is stupid."

you could hear my sniffles in the echoey bathroom as i sat on the floor in the big stall of the men's bathroom. i wiped my eyes with the sleeves of my oversized pastel sweater and put my face into my knees.

a pair of hands pulled my arms from around my legs and put them around their body instead.

"it's not stupid hyunnie. that's how you feel. you can't control it."

i looked up at yeonjun with big doe-like eyes that were red and sore from me rubbing them after crying so much to which he cooed sadly. a muffled sob racked out of me with no warning as i buried my face in his hoodie. his warmth was comforting.

i didn't usually have attacks like this in school. i trained myself to hide and avoid it until i got home. but in my mixed grade math class that i had with yeonjun and soobin when i felt the feelings coming on and tried to push it away, they wouldn't budge. it was like trying to fight off a giant.

no matter how hard i fought it off i still couldn't win. my vision was getting blurry. i couldn't focus on my work.

i just needed to get this assignment done. math was a good enough distraction to hold on just a bit longer. but i was wrong. usually academics could push it away for me. like a shield. but today was different.

when he sat between us at lunch. when he said his name was so cool. when he hesitated. it just kept repeating in my head.

over and over and over.

like a broken vhs tape that wouldn't stop playing the same part again and again.

yeonjun nudged my arm and asked if i was okay. 

of course i just nodded and said that i was fine. i didn't want him to know it was happening again because even though he knows that budging makes it worse, he knows that if i can't hold it together in class then he needs to help.

and he's right.

because it hit fast. 

like a car speeding through a red light into oncoming traffic.

one tear drop smudged the pen where i had worked out an equation and after that i saw everything falling into place. the tears beginning to fall more and more. one right after the other.

i couldn't breathe. i tried to hide it but i was practically dry heaving in my seat because the lack of oxygen brought the nausea. and then i knew it was too late. 

yeonjun immediately knew something was wrong when i began to shake. when i put my pen down on the desk and raised my hand which was shaking to a horrible extent. 

when i shakily asked the teacher on the brink of sobbing if i could be excused to the bathroom.

thankfully my parents had set in motion a plan with the school so that they knew about my anxiety attacks that were so extreme to the point of my own despair in some cases. that thankfully meaning that i could excuse myself at any moment during class, even in the middle of a lesson or test, to leave the room if i couldn't handle it.

i knew that i had caught the attention of yeonjun and soobin when i hastily left the room but at this point it was too far to care. when i got to the bathroom i didn't even shut the stall door behind me, i just slid to the floor and fell into a defensive position to reduce the feelings.

i heard the bathroom door open and slam shut afterwards and footsteps race towards my stall. i thought i heard yeonjun but i wasn't sure. the world was muffled between my sobs and shallow breaths as well as the far too familiar ringing in my ears.

i held myself tightly to try and feel myself there and in control. but i knew i wasn't in control and that was the scariest part. yeonjun was pushing my hair away from my face as the strands stuck to the sweat on my forehead and the tears on my cheeks. 

he rubbed my back until i was calm enough to be touched more than that. we had been good friends for a while and with him and soobin being the only people aside from my parents that had ever seen this happen, they knew very well how the situation needed to be handled.

after a while i had stopped gagging and could breathe a bit better. the tears lessened and i could see now. my eyes and face still burned in both embarrassment, anger, and pain.

it hurt to cry so much. to not be able to breathe. to not be in control of myself.

my lungs and throat burned. everything was in pain. this usually was how it ended. i felt so unbelievably weak and in pain. and it wasn't overwhelming to be hugged anymore.

so i fiddled with my sweater sleeves and mumbled under my breath that i was so stupid because i couldn't handle the thoughts in my mind like a normal person.

then yeonjun said something  to try and help and pulled me into a hug.

the hug made me cry again for some reason and he just held me tight and close and rubbed my back and played with my hair as he held me, rocking slightly back and forth.

he knew just what it took to tame the beast.

i heard him faintly say that soobin was concerned and was outside the restroom. he wanted to come in and see me.

i nodded weakly and i heard the other rush in. he cooed sadly at the sight just like the eldest had and yeonjun looked up at the latter as well as i. my face probably a disaster.

"come here buddy."

soobin held out his arms and sat shoulder to shoulder with yeonjun and i crawled into his arms like a baby.

i buried my head in his chest as well, just as i had done with yeonjun. and once again i was crying into his body. he held me closer to him and tightly hugged my back and supported the back of my head, holding it securely against his beating heart.

i felt my body shake with the cries.

i felt yeonjun running his hands through my hair and gently patting my head like you would to a dog or small child.

and as i started to feel the exhaustion setting in and began to unwillingly fall asleep in soobin's arms next to yeonjun on the bathroom stall floor, i heard yeonjun singing softly and soobin whispering gently in my ear, "shh shh, it's okay tae-baby. don't cry. just rest. close your eyes, breathe, rest, i'm right here. 

yeonjun hyung is right here. don't be afraid. don't be sad.
we are right here, we won't ever leave your side."

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a/n; this chapter was quite long compared to the others. so sorry but i wanted to kind of give you guys a wholesome taesoojun moment and give an insight to taehyun's personal struggles both internally and externally. this might seem a bit much but a lot of people struggle with these things in this way so i wanted to give a bit of an insight to those type of issues through tae. i hope you enjoyed, bye bye! <3