colors. kth x myg / taegi

six

"how far have you gotten with taehyung?" seokjin asked curiously, coughing into his sleeve.

"not much. he's a little reserved," yoongi replied.

it was late at night and seokjin was taking one of the night shifts. he had asked yoongi to stay with him and he had been too weak in the heart to ditch the older boy. so there he sat, drinking a cup of hot coffee and speaking quietly to seokjin.

the hallways were empty and quiet, filled with the snores of sleeping patients and lit up with a few warm, yellow lights.

"he seems really sweet behind his walls though," yoongi said. "i've never wanted to help a patient so desperately."

"he's so young," seokjin said. his words hung heavily in the air. "his family hasn't come visit yet?"

"they didn't even know he was dying until his friend showed up on their doorstep after getting a text message," yoongi scoffed. "they don't care about him. no wonder he's so reserved."

a light in the hallway flickered for
a moment.

"what did the ship do when it caught a cold?"

yoongi merely glared at seokjin.

"and to think i actually believed we were having a serious conversation-"

"it went to the doc."

"i hate you."

* * *

"tell me about your scars."

"the ones on my wrist?"

"whichever ones you want."

yoongi sat clad in a white jacket and black shoes, pale skin reflecting the light of the room. he held a clipboard and a pen, the needle and thread that he needed to put taehyung back together. each word was a single stitch and each sentence was a piece of him that was mended. silence filled the room with something empty and full at the same time as taehyung thought about what to say.

the silence was loud, crashing against yoongi's eardrums like thousands of waves in a storm.

"well, i have a scar on my shoulder," taehyung said. "i got it when i fell off the swing set at school. it's kind of a long story, and the fact that i fell shoulder first onto a rock is ridiculous, but it happened."

"that's unfortunate."

"yeah. unfortunate."

taehyung pulled his shirt off his left shoulder, exposing the skin underneath. the scar was small, just stretching along the width of his shoulder.

"and i have a scar on my knee from when i fell off my bike," taehyung continued. "i was five or something, and i saw a snail in the middle of the sidewalk and i tried to stop."

yoongi laughed. "a snail?"

"isn't it kind of funny?" taehyung smiled. "i stopped to save a snail."

"that was nice of you."

there was a pause as taehyung milled over his thoughts again.

"and i have a scar on my forehead," he said, pushing away his bangs to reveal a small mark on the left side of his face. "my uncle threw something at me. i think it was a glass bottle or something, but he was really mad and i was actually crying so much that i didn't even know he had hit me until the blood dripped into my mouth." taehyung grimaced. "it started hurting really bad after i realized, and i cried until he kicked me out for the night. i had to go to my friend's house."

"how did it all feel?"

"i don't know. how do you think it felt?"

"well, i'm sure it hurt. but anything else?"

taehyung blinked a few times, slightly confused and a bit lost before he spoke again. "i think i was a little relieved."

"relieved?"

"to get out of the house," he said. "i never liked being home."

and then taehyung pulled away the sleeve on his left arm, and the sleeve on his right too. horizontal cuts lay along his left arm in an organized pattern, and there was a vertical slash across them. it was long and straight, stretching down the length of his forearm. his right wrist, however, only had one long vertical scar, nearly identical to the one on his left arm other than the fact that it was sloppier, twisting and turning like a toddler's messy picture.

"the horizontal cuts were only meant to hurt," taehyung said. "i just wanted to feel. and how they were so straight and organized made me feel powerful for once."

rain began to patter lightly outside, leaving trails down the window over the view of dark, gray clouds shrouding the sky.

"and then the vertical ones were when i tried to kill myself." his eyes were sad, glossing over with empty tears. taehyung willed the tears away. "the one on my left arm was easier to get straight because i'm right handed. but the one on my right arm took longer, and it was slower and a lot more painful. i started crying then too."

"because it hurt?"

"i'm not really sure," taehyung said. "it just felt different from the other cuts. maybe it was my closure? it was the last slit i made before i downed the pills, so maybe i cried because i knew... because i thought it was really the end then."

"you told me the vertical scars meant freedom to you, right?"

taehyung nodded.

"do they mean anything else?"

the rain became violent outside. thunder sounded lightly, distant from where yoongi and taehyung sat, and wind pushed the raindrops against the window, pounding in austere movements.

"freedom sounds like a good thing," taehyung said. "so they mean something good to me. but at the same time, i feel as if they always remind me of what i am." yoongi heard taehyung's voice waver. "i'm weak and unstable. i'm crazy in the eyes of society because my head was so messed up that i tried to kill myself. that's what the scars remind me of. and i guess i kind of hate it." a tear rolled down his cheek and taehyung roughly rubbed his eye, harshly wiping away the tear.

yoongi looked into taehyung's eyes and saw a heavy, deep rooted pain. the way taehyung spoke and breathed and walked was always oddly weighed down, and yoongi could now see with awful clarity why it was that way.

his scars, his memories, his demons were so heavily stitched into him in the form of scars that they served as a constant reminder of his insecurities and flaws. they were like an invisible phantom, whispering things to him and forcing him to believe that his scars were all that held him together.

yoongi wondered how he could possibly pull apart the scars and put him back together with a needle and thread.