iris . vkook

ninety five

He often wondered why life was imperfect.

He spent a lot of his free time laid on the cold, wooden floor, staring up to his ceiling. Thoughts would consume his mind, black and grey and blue staining his happiness. Sadness, anger, and everything in-between would splotch his memories, temporarily clouding them.

He constantly questioned why people never stuck around, why did they always leave?

How could they just wake up one day, with their feels different to how they were the day before?

How could they just detach themselves?

Just letting go of him like he meant nothing, silk slipping through their fingers with no attempts to grasp it. No attempts to grab him, ground him and keep him in their life.

Did he really mean that little?

He wished for rain when the sun shone, and he wished for sunlight when precipitation hammered down on bricked pathways, an acidic scent left behind, making his eyes water and throat seize up, lungs flaring.

He'd stare at the moon, looking at how it glowed, basking in it's presence. It was comforting and saddening at the same time, for the exact same reason.

It was comforting that it showed he'd made it through another long and treacherous day, but it was saddening to know that he'd have to push through another one. Through many more. Through many more hours of pain, sadness and the occasional smile and happiness if he was lucky.

Kim Taehyung was not the luckiest of people.

He was gay, with homophobic parents.

He was overly caring for everyone, with an assassin for a partner.

He was extremely intelligent, with an overcoming love for art.

He would often be driven to confusion and the feeling of subconscious loss, where people would tell him that he was wasting himself with art, but he should still follow his dreams.

But if his dream was art, was he wasting himself?

Surely, he was wasting himself if he didn't showcase his talent.

He was indecisive, conflicted.

If he didn't have enough time to make decisions, he'd regret them in the long run.

So, when he yelped, hiding behind Hoseok in a split-second decision, regret swallowed him up immediately.

Everything became white noise as he fell to his knees, his eyes blind to everything but Hoseok.

He missed how Jay ended Taemin's suffering, the previously thrashing man now laid still on the asphalt. Blood leaked from his stomach, staining his shirt and the grey beneath him, rose petals melting and becoming one with the ground.

Hoseok took small, sharp breaths as he clutched at his chest. He struggled to swallow down his spit, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth as heat overcame his entire body, burning at his insides and stinging. He could feel fire licking at his heart and at his eyelids. He blinked multiple times, not only trying to rid of the pain pooling in his eyes, but also to prevent the succumbing to death. He didn't want to slip away, not yet, not ever.

He had so much potential left. Many more nights of laughing with friends, curling up with lovers, drinking with colleagues after long shifts of work.

He had so many more things that he wanted to do. He wanted to marry, wanted to bring up a child, wanted to get a dog, wanted to live. He wanted to tell his life story to his grandchildren, and have it passed on through the generations until he was simply known as an ancestor who lived an adventurous life, dying an adventurous death.