pretty boy | taekook

i'm scared

chapter twenty-six ;; i'm scared
jeongguk's perspective
°☆.。.:*・°☆

The warm car finally neared the cliff, and I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if we kept going at full speed. It's not a suicidal thought. I have no desire to find out for myself what it would feel like. It's merely my mind going back off into a world that most would find dark and daunting. Out of exhaustion and displeasing thoughts for my own good, I rest the side of my head onto my hand that's propped up by my elbow. The car radio remained off, putting a fog of silence across Taehyung and I.

Taehyung's hand loosely gripped the steering wheel, making me feel a bit uneasy. He turns the wheel slightly, and the car parks in a makeshift spot facing the lapping ocean. Taehyung grabs onto the parking break to put the car in park, and none of us move at first, finding that moving would ruin the comfortableness of the moment.

Taehyung's eyes do trail over to me after another few moments, looking with eyes so soft and hesitant, like he was having a battle behind the gleaming orbs. I had no idea if he had plans to move or to just stay here in the car that continued to cast warmth across mountains of people. It made my mind-boggle, how only two hours before we were happy over Taehyung's victory and hanging off of each other. Now, there was a set distance as the atmosphere felt noticeably more and more grim the more time continued through the infamous silence which always seemed to hang.

Taehyung had brought me to a cliff, a high placed cliff with a deadly bottom of jagged rocks. It scared me. I thought of how he must've found this place and why he'd go here. There was no way to hide the depressing vibe emitting from the ocean spray crashing down below. A few hundred meters are the only thing keeping from life and death. It seemed like a tempting fate, maybe. This was not a family place to bring children, meaning that Taehyung must've found it on his own, and for some reason, that made me shift in my seat, awaiting words to be spoken.

"This is the cliff I used to go to everyday after my family died and I was still in the orphanage..." Taehyung's voice is barely over the heater's whoosh while staring out into the darkened sky, "I'd sneak out after dark and come here, sit on those rocks over there." His hand lifts up, a coarse finger pointing at a set of smooth stones even more elevated off of the ground, "I thought about jumping for the longest time, and, for a while, it sounded like the best option..." His voice threatens to crumble, "until I reminded myself of something." Taehyug's fingers begin to run across the steering wheel in deep thought.

"Wha-What is it?" My voice was shaky and similar to his, almost as shaky as the hands I concealed in between my legs. They were now frozen with the rest of my face due to the car shutting off on its own.

He doesn't look over at me, but I don't know if I really want him to, "That there must've been some reason as to why I, Kim Taehyung, was left to stay on this planet while the ones I loved most were gone, stripped away from me," I allow the small tears to roll down his face, my own face daring to dampen as well, "and I convinced myself that I had a purpose." He takes in a deep breath, flexing out his fingers before gripping the steering wheel tightly once more, leaning forward placing his forehead onto the leather, "That purpose was for me to help another, someone that was undeniably more deserving of help than I ever was," a deep inhale sounded from him, "and I feel, deep down in my gut, that you're the person. You're the one that deserves to be helped, more so than I. You're- You're the reason why I'm still here. My mind is strong in the idea of 'everything happens for a reason', no matter how cliche it sounds."

I stay seated. It was a scary thought to disrupt Taehyung's fleeting thoughts.. It was intimate, leaving me dazed at the tone of his voice and the dark, twisted meaning behind the words sounding so pretty and lethal, but after Taehyung does nothing more to speak again, I take that it's my turn to speak instead, "My mom," it was a large leap for me into the unknown, but I was going to take it, "she died of cancer when I was fifteen." Taehyung's view continues to be trained on the steering wheel, lips pursed in deep thought, "When she died, my whole world died. Everything dried out of color and wonder and want...It was painful to watch everything change with such a rippled effect.