Wheels Have Each Other

29. The storm

Jeongguk thought he had seen everything in his life. He thought he had already reached saturation when it came to torturing his heart, but oh boy was he wrong. Nothing equalled the pain he felt upon losing two of his very close friends.

How many more was he going to lose in his life? First Jiyeon, and now Seokjin and Namjoon. Who was next?

Namjoon was his idol. He was his role model in ways one could never imagine. And Seokjin was like a blood-brother to him. He had always been there for him. Always. And their loss wrecked his mind beyond repair.

The second Taehyung and Jimin stepped out, the volcano that he had been forcefully keeping inside himself just burst out. It was literally a raging lava when the tears came out, sobs tearing through his throat mercilessly without a thought about the sleeping baby right there. 

He walked over to Seokjin and Namjoon's photos and kneeled down, bending forward until his forehead met his palms, which were resting on his knees, and then the dam knew no stop. The agony he felt just wouldn't let him take a breath. Not that he needed it anyway. 

If only he could vaporize into thin dust right now, maybe then, he wouldn't feel this excruciating torment in his heart. 

He sat up and threw his head back, letting out a heart-wrenching yell, which was almost instantly followed by a scared wail. 

With his eyes widening in the realization of what he had done, Jeongguk scrambled back towards the couch to calm down a startled and now frightened and wailing Dohyeon. 

He gave up calming him down after a few seconds, however, and cradled him close to his chest and joined him in his cries, weeping from the bottom of his heart for the boy's loss. For his own loss. 

Dohyeon cried himself to sleep once again but was startled awake yet again at the sound of the harsh and unstopping doorbell. 

Who the hell would ring a doorbell like that?

Jeongguk, who had been rubbing Dohyeon's back comfortingly, froze mid-rub and gulped, realizing that today was the fourth of July. How on earth could he forget about that? Why the hell did Seokjin not inform him abo-

It all came crashing down again when he remembered that Seokjin was no more. 

His face crumpled as a few more sobs escaped his throat, but then, the continuous ringing of the doorbell, and the fact that Dohyeon was wailing again, brought him back to his senses. 

"Shhh, it's okay, trust me, Hyeon-ah, everything's okay, shhhhh," he tried, but neither Dohyeon's cries, nor the doorbell's rings stopped. 

The sane part of him knew he had to avoid the door at all costs, knowing exactly who was ringing the doorbell (Taehyung had his own set of keys), but the insane part of him wanted to open the door so that the ringing would stop scaring Dohyeon. 

"STOP!! JUST STOP!!" he screamed when everything became too much, but unfortunately, that just scared Dohyeon more. The tears that were running down his face looked like visual poison to Jeongguk. As if each of those drops would kill him just by looking at them. Maybe they were doing their job already. 

"OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR THEN!!" he heard that voice outside the door, the voice that had once upon a time held a very special place in his heart (it still did). 

"NO!! FUCK OFF!! GET LOST!! GET OUT OF MY LIFE!! PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU!!" Jeongguk begged from inside, now ignoring Dohyeon. He could deal with him later. There was a more urgent matter demanding his attention at the moment. 

There was silence for a while, but it fell so suddenly that for a second, Jeongguk wished the ringing didn't stop. Buckets of sweat ran down his face. There was no way he was letting Yugyeom in now. Not when Dohyeon was there.