SCARRED | TK

Chapter Five

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"Memories of a stolen place
Caught in the silence
An echo lost in space."

Jeongguk was woken up every morning by the sound of footsteps heading towards his door and every morning he made sure that none of his drawings were visible before crouching in the corner of his uncomfortable bed, trying to make himself disappear as well. 

He was accustomed to hearing Seokjin behind the door but that day he knew from the moment those heartbeats, fast and frightened, reached his ears that he wasn't the one who would enter the room in a few seconds.  His eyes continued to stare at the same point until the door opened and a tall—perhaps far too thin—figure slipped through it. 

Jeongguk looked up at the man's face, carefully examining his every feature. He, like all the people he had ever met, had reddish eyes, a pale face, dry lips, and a few grey colored veins on his neck—the only ones visible. Jeongguk lowered his curious eyes to his body, almost smiling once he noticed the pencil in his pocket. The doctor's hands, covered in thin white gloves, carried a tray on which were placed two plates Jeongguk was aware were for him.

"Good morning, Jeongguk. How are you feeling?" The man asked with a faint smile on his face, to Jeongguk's surprise. The boy was quite sure the doctor in front of him was shaking with fear—he could hear his heartbeat and it was too fast to be considered normal.

The teenager did not answer, stretching his arms forward to take the tray instead. Jeongguk raised his eyebrows questioningly, dropping his arms on the bed when the man refused to offer it, his gaze wandering around the room with his eyebrows lowered in a frown.

"Don't you have a table?" He asked but it was obvious Jeongguk did not. He wasn't even sure what a table was. "I think I'll have to get you one later.  Now, come on, get up and sit on the edge of the bed."

The man named Taehyung asked in a soft tone while still holding the tray with his trembling arms, far too weak to support even such a light weight.

The boy refused to move, deciding that it was better not to answer the doctor. None of them were really interested in his well-being, so why bother listening to them? He tilted his head almost ironically to the side, like a kind of unspoken message. I don't want to, those were the words Jeongguk would have said, but he wasn't going to say them out loud in front of one of them.

After all, the doctor in front of him, even if he had offered him a pencil, was still a doctor, like everyone else, which meant that his hands would, at some point, leave behind scars, visible or not.

Once he realized Jeongguk wasn't going to answer, nor move, the man let out a sigh.

"I'll leave the tray here. Today you have a fairly consistent menu.  Make sure you eat everything."

Of course it's consistent, Jeongguk thought as his lips formed a bitter smile. He knew that in two hours he would be forced to move to another room, a room he visited daily in order to have his blood drained out of him. Each time he returned, he'd fall on the bed and refuse to move for another hour because of the dizziness that overwhelmed him.

"I'm leaving now, Jeongguk."  The man's rather thick voice, but especially the words, made the teenager shift his gaze from the tray on his bed to Kim Taehyung, more precisely, to the pocket of his white coat.

The man probably noticed his attention, for he laughed, creating a sweet, melodious sound that Jeongguk, without acknowledging it, would have liked to hear again.

The sound of his laughter broke down that numb silence in which only the clock on his wall could be heard beating rhythmically like his heart which, however, was beating faster and faster at that moment, because of the fact that Taehyung had actually understood what he wanted. The doctor was holding the pencil between his fingers, simply staring at it for a few seconds like he was using it as bait for the boy.

Jeongguk was really thinking about accepting that bait with open arms and a wide smile on his face. He wanted to hold that colored pencil between his fingers and use it to fill that geometric shape he had drawn which was currently hidden under his mattress.

He was actually about to do all those things but before his long fingers could catch the pencil, Taehyung pulled his hand away, hiding it behind him—away from the boy's sad and expecting eyes. 

Jeongguk was not a cruel person, the doctor came to that conclusion when the teenager looked up at him with glassy eyes but Taehyung also knew that he should not rely on such thoughts yet because, from all he knew, the other part of him could appear any time, taking away that childlike look and those doe eyes. Taehyung was almost certain he would faint if something—somehow—made Jeongguk's emotions explode. The doctor hoped that would never happen but he was already aware anything was possible when it came to someone like Jeongguk.

After inhaling deeply, Taehyung decided to state his reason for not offering the other the pencil because Jeongguk looked like he was on the verge of crying and it was breaking Taehyung's heart to see him like that.

"Well, Jeongguk, I said I'd give you a new pencil if you would talk to me. Are you willing to talk?"

Taehyung almost laughed when the boy flopped back on the bed, his hands on his chest and a pout on his lips.

The doctor turned his back to the teenager, already knowing that he would not answer, because Jeongguk was stubborn, he could tell even if they've only met twice. He left the room, locking the steel door behind him, and took a deep breath. His heart wasn't beating as fast anymore, he realized as he took small, staggering steps down the hall of the building.

Jeongguk wasn't a monster, Taehyung now knew. He surely wasn't someone they should be afraid of because, after all, he was still human—a teenager in fact. 

Taehyung wondered to himself how the other had managed to survive all those years knowing that he was alone, perhaps even dreaded by those around him. Before the answers to his own questions and curiosities could come naturally, the images in front of him started to blur and the balance he had struggled to gain in order to stand in front of Jeongguk disappeared for a moment. 

Taehyung pressed his body against the wall, moaning in pain, then pursed his lips in a weak attempt not to throw up everything he had eaten in the last few days. When the pain passed, Taehyung began to take small steps toward his room, hoping that the cure they had been searching for was finally close—even if it was related to Jeongguk and his immunity. 

Taehyung, from all the reports he's read, was aware that Jeongguk's blood relieved their pain and slowed their symptoms but it did not completely heal them and was not compatible with all blood types—his blood type was also incompatible with Jeongguk, which meant that his sickness couldn't be slowed.

As Taehyung kept walking to his room, the 18-year-old crouched on the bed, the tray already empty and forgotten. The boy was holding the paper sheets filled with familiar images on his knees—images he did not remember ever seeing. Jeongguk hadn't known what other colors looked like until the new doctor had appeared—courtesy of his foggy mind and the fact that everything around him was white—but a few distant memories of certain images were slowly appearing in his mind, helping him remember all the colors he had forgotten.

Jeongguk stopped the movement of his hand, slowly lifting the pencil between his fingers so he could take another look at it.  He didn't know why but instinct was pushing him to draw those shapes on his paper red, as if deep inside he was actually aware of everything he had forgotten.

The teenager let the pencil slide easily on the sheet to fill in the blanks of the drawing, a soft smile appearing on his face as he did so. The headache didn't bother him at that moment, the warmth in his heart stronger than any pain he could feel. Still smiling, Jeongguk left the drawing on the bed, but continued to look at it only to make sure he would not forget what that shape meant, what it was. 

For the first time in all those years, Jeongguk felt the need to speak.

He wanted to outline that word that was echoing in his mind, being uttered by another voice, a voice he was sure he had heard before. 

When or where, he didn't know, but it didn't matter at that moment. 

Jeongguk, for the first time, had remembered.

With that realization in mind and a smile on his face, he lifted the drawing, voicing out the word resonating in his mind.

"Apple."