3000 Stars

Wrong Therapy

"So, your parents mentioned your nightmares, but is there anything else you need to tell me before we start?" the therapist asked.

Taehyung glared at her, shaking his head. Between them was the timer the therapist always set to remind herself when the appointment was over. Taehyung was sure he would be able to make it through without saying anything. He didn't care whether she would report that to his parents or not.

He wasn't telling her anything.

"Would you be willing to describe your nightmares for me?"

"I don't remember them," Taehyung said.

The therapist nodded, tapping her pen on the desk and tipping her head down. "I see. How do you feel when you wake up?"

"Like shxt."

"Could you elaborate?"

Taehyung raised an eyebrow at her and shut his mouth, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head. She didn't deserve to know. He hated his parents for telling her he had nightmares at all. She didn't deserve to play the part of helper or savior or whatever she thought she could be just because she was the one his parents hired to fix him.

He would give her nothing.

"Are you still in the arena?" the therapist asked.

"No," Taehyung lied.

"Oh," the therapist said. "When did you quit?"

"Three weeks before I quit your sessions," Taehyung said. The memory made his heart burn. Leaving the fight club, blocking his friends' numbers, getting a new phone... it was all too much. He swallowed an angry outburst. He wouldn't let her have the satisfaction of getting him riled up. Nothing could make him succumb to those memories again.

Nothing...

Yoongi's face flashed into his mind, and he pressed his lips together to hide a sigh, shaking his head and running his hand through his hair.

"What's wrong?" the therapist asked.

Taehyung glared at her and didn't answer. He was thinking of Yoongi again. Why hadn't he seen this coming sooner? He was going to get attached to Yoongi. He was going to feel more and more guilty about trying to make Yoongi give up on the arena. He was going to have to reveal himself, whether he wanted to or not.

Why had he set the bet in the first place? He couldn't remember. He tugged at his jeans, staring at the pattern of light and dark threads in the denim, and mulled over the thought for a moment before letting it go. It wasn't worth anything to him. He had set the bet, and he had to follow through with it. Perhaps it wouldn't matter whether he climbed the ranks in the tournaments again. Perhaps the other fighters at the top would keep Yoongi from reaching his goal until Taehyung was long gone.

That would be nice.

Taehyung glanced at the timer. It had barely been ten minutes. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, kicking his legs sideways on the chair and letting his head drop over the opposite arm.

The therapist let him. It was one of her tactics, letting him think himself into submission. Into the state of high stress where he leaned on others and their opinions simply because he couldn't pull his thoughts together. She would wait until he hit that point and make some suggestion, some small suggestion, before closing the session and leaving him to mull over it until he followed it without thinking.

She terrified him for this very reason. He sat in the chair, arms folded, waiting for the time to drain away and wondering if he would be able to steel himself for the suggestion, if he might be able to suppress it now, if he might be able to keep out of her reach while doing what his parents had asked of him. Let them waste their money. He didn't need their therapy.

"Have you processed Seokjin's death?" the therapist asked.

Every muscle in Taehyung's body tensed. He sucked in a breath, gritting his teeth and opening his mouth to make some biting retort, but the words slipped away from him, and he felt the world fuzz, going softer in the background as he sat, silent, staring into space with no thought in his mind.

Tears wavered in his eyes. He closed them, meaning to hold the tears back, but instead they slipped out, down his face. He scrubbed them away with a shirt sleeve, but it was too late. He had lost.

He had lost.