pastel [3]

fourteen

Taehyung's point of view

"Taehyung please let us in." Hoseok and Yoongi had been sitting on the opposite side of the door begging for me to open it for three hours. I refused to answer, stranded in the shame of having to face the people who only saw me as a vagrant abuser. My tears had run dry, left to silently heave up empty sobs that were absorbed by Daehyun holding me in his arms. It felt pathetic to be crying with the same person who was the reason for all this. If I opened the door, no doubt Daehyun wouldn't be able to control himself in retaliating against Yoongi for touching me.

"How's your wrist now Taehyungie?" The mildly concerning psychopath asked gently as his hands cradled my chin. Such a juxtaposition of irony that it lightened that weight just enough to move and lift my sleeve to check my wrist that had been reopened by Yoongi's grip. 

"Still hurts..." I whispered, biting my lip to hold back a cry.

"Don't stop yourself Taehyungie, it'll make things worse." I nodded, feeling the tears begin to fall again. I wasn't sure why I was crying, but I couldn't stop. It was one of those moments when you cry for such pointless and hopeless reasons. I wanted to know what this hopeless reason was, and why it was causing me so much pain.

"I'm so sorry..." I whispered through tears, burying my face into Daehyun's shirt. My clothes felt like an anchor on my body, pulling me down in hopes to drown me. With my own self-loathing, it didn't take much.

"What for?"

"Making you stay with me... I'm pathetic, I'm sorry." This time I pulled away, shuffling backward until my back was pressed against the door. Each deep breath fed the shame that fraught my mind. Crashing through thoughts of what Jungkook would say to me, of how angry he would be. I pictured the way he would say he hated me. My mind found familiarity in this guilt when I met Daehyun's eyes, flashing through memories of his death, the night that I had solidified my fate to be filled with punishment and regret. "I... why don't you hate me?" I croaked into the silence, struggling to get out each breath.

"Oh Taehyung. It's far beyond a need to say sorry, and I will never hate you. I'm here for a reason." Daehyun tried to break through the noise filling my headspace, but it was too late. The anchor had sunk and it was taking me with it, eye's fluttering under the fading lights.

"I'm so sorry." That was the last thing I remembered.

Third person point of view

It was terrifying to watch Taehyung plummet into his broken conscience, body falling and eyes crystallising under ocean eyes. Daehyun scrambled to catch him as he limply fell forward, pulling him to his arms before he could hit the ground. It was like his entire soul was fading, and along with it his clothes. The sweet pastel of his shirt and pants were slowly losing their colour, desaturation under the void of their owner.

"Tae please don't do this..." Daehyun whispered out through the silence, lips pressed to his hairline and trying to shake his brother back to consciousness. "I'm here, please wake up!" Even with the turbulence of his efforts, Taehyung remained lost inside his mindscape, forcing himself to relive each memory of his regrets.

With a groan Daehyun reached out to twist the door knob and leave the door ajar before returning to Taehyung. Each hopeful gush of attention was followed up with reassuring words that struggled to conceal his panic. Had he failed his job to protect his brother? Venus spoke about this as a potential risk of his resurrection, it was the whole reason he was the boy's guardian.

Taehyung's mind was tortured along with his body. It was a precarious balance to keep him present in his human experience when his soul had been strung along through centuries of imbalanced trials. It was something the human mind was never created for, only his half of immortal genes allowed him to still be alive.