Fine {DoTae} | complete

Eighteen

The remainder of the week offers just as many opportunities for dates and by the weekend they're tired out, resting their legs from all the walking by not getting out of bed until well into the afternoon. They doze on and off, talk about this and that, and while Taeyong is asleep Doyoung admires their tattoos. His skin isn't so red anymore but pulses hot when he presses down around the edge, gets worse when he does it again just to make sure it's real. Taeyong keeps telling him to leave it alone so it can heal, but it's hard to focus his mind off it when it's so in view of everything he does.

Taeyong goes out for a day of interviews and radio shows and Doyoung stays back, told to keep out of the way. The fancy hotel suite is suddenly too big. He mutters to himself about what to do and his voice seems to echo, the walls throwing the words back to taunt him for feeling lonely. They tell him he's selfish for always expecting Taeyong to be at his side. He's gotten used to always having him around like when they first met, so when schedules pick up again it's a harsh reality check.

He paces the room. He stares at the tattoo on his arm. He taps the wall, turns the lights on and off just to make sure they're off, he remakes the bed four times, then a fifth just to make sure before sitting on the loveseat opposite the bed and plugging in his headphones. He listens to Taeyong's first album, the one with the softest voice and the rawest lyrics from before he had grown into more confident, fierce rapping. Eyes drifting shut, he breathes slowly and counts the taps of his feet on the carpet. His hand moves up to his head before the end of the first song. He doesn't stop himself, a single feeble voice in his head not enough to fight the urges that seep through his veins with no control. Once again, the old habits consume him.

He's back in his room at home. The twist in his gut feels too like the anger he'd feel after arguing with his parents. He almost wishes he were home with his family again. He imagines how much simpler things would be; they wouldn't be easy, only simple enough for him to have a routine to his day. And routines help him breathe. Eating the same breakfast, the same dinners on rotation, the same lunch at college, helped him keep track. Leaving the house at the same time each morning gave him an obvious escape route from the crossfire between his parents.

He tugs a hair from his scalp and clenches his jaw, holding his breath until panic bubbles up his throat and into his mind and he exhales, rubbing the top of his head and whispering to himself to snap out of it. The next song begins but it's mere background noise. The beats and lyrics are familiar, engrained so deep in his head that he doesn't need to pay attention to follow along to the song because he knows it all by heart, backwards and upside down and in his sleep. He pulls another hair and drops it to the floor, knee bouncing.

He'd been doing well, or thought he was. Without the schedules and dates distracting him he freezes, and the simmering anxiety bubbles over at the first chance it gets. It comes in waves, each stronger than the last, like an ice-cold wind snatching his breath away. He pulls his knees to his chest and scratches his scalp until the sting turns numb and his nail has a spot of blood underneath. He does it on the other side too. For a minute, he sits and breaths with clenched fists, muttering about how he's so stupid and how it feels good and how he hates himself for giving in.

He doesn't move from the sofa all morning. Ordering room service, he wishes he were at home. His mother would make him lunch, not without a sarcastic comment but she'd do it all the same, and he'd eat it with Bongshik pawing at the chair to demand a bite.

Hotel to hotel to hotel, and none of them feel like home. He thinks of his apartment with Taeyong. Compares its warmth to the coldness of his family home. He remembers the relief and excitement he'd felt when he finally moved out, then contemplates the way he'd pushed down his fears at not having his parents to look after him anymore. He had to learn to pay bills, do the laundry, do the dishes, to always lock the windows when he goes out and to be careful to turn the lights off when not needed. The harder he thinks, the tighter his chest becomes. He yearns for home but doesn't know where he belongs and it's not the first time since the start of tour that he's had such thoughts yet it's the first time the feelings have sunk in so hard, the first time they've had him gasping through tears.