All He Wanted

A promise

Taehyung’s face crumpled as soon as he saw Jeongguk and the older of the two raced over to him, burrowing his face into the younger one’s stomach. The wind was colder at the height they were at. He noticed Taehyung’s puffy coat and slightly scuffed sneakers different from his pyjamas. Tears soaked through Jeongguk’s shirt as he lightly patted Taehyung’s head in a comforting manner, “I’m sorry. I know it’s late… I just wanted to see you.”

Jeongguk smiled softly at that, but he couldn’t help the curiosity digging into him, why were they at the top of a building an hour away from their homes?

“Why are we here? Are you alright, is everything okay?”

Taehyung looked up at him with red, tired eyes. He looked so small, “I wanted to jump so bad. I’m just a coward though. That’s all I am. I can’t even kill myself- I’m so horrible.”

Jeongguk shook Taehyung a bit, “Taehyung, no.”

The latter sniffled a bit, “I… ah… It was just a horrible argument tonight.” He hummed as if to make up for the lack of words he could come up with, “Things are getting worse.”

“You think killing yourself would be better?” Jeongguk asked incredulously, he directed both of them to sit down, their backs against a wall, “What about Jimin? What about the guys? And me?”

Taehyung shrugged at a loss for words, “I… I don’t think it really matters if I’m here or not.”

“You- it does matter! Taehyung! Of course, it matters! You have a whole life ahead of you; still, you’ll graduate and-”

“Graduate… I’ll leave.” Taehyung froze as if to comprehend what he had whispered to himself, he was no longer crying, but his eyes held so much sadness and despair still. He turned to Jeongguk, “Jimin will be alone with my mom.”

Jeongguk nodded as if he understood what Taehyung meant- Taehyung, nowadays, was an enigma.

“I can’t leave him there- if I’m gone, she’ll hit-” Taehyung froze as soon as he felt the first raindrop on his finger. Then a hundred more raindrops poured down, but the two didn’t move from the spot.

“This has gone far too long, Tae. If she’s phy-”

Taehyung abruptly fisted Jeongguk’s shirt, not in a violent manner but in a desperate one. “You can’t tell anyone about this, about the abuse,” Jeongguk looked into the glassy brown eyes of the older one, “It’ll get worse if you do. I can’t protect Jimin if you do. Promise me, you won’t tell anyone.”

Jeongguk could see the tears start to well up in Taehyung’s eyes, so he nodded his head quickly, “You won’t attempt anything then right…?”

“Only if I fail.”

… 15:23 WEEK 2 MAR

Taehyung snickered, and Jengguk couldn’t’ help but roll his eyes at the small, gleeful noise. The latter was absolutely fucking pissed with the older of the duo. “Can you stop making jokes about killing yourself for one minute?”

Taehyung hadn’t even flinched at the jaggedness of Jeongguk’s voice, “The other option is I could cry and face my feelings, so unless you want to pay for a handful of kleenex and a few tubs of strawberry ice cream, then no.” The duo was walking, god knows where out of the sight of the police station: out of the view of Taehyung’s mother and out of the line of sight of the police officer she had been cheating on his father with.

I would rather do that , Jeongguk thought to himself but thought better than to say that. It was worse this time around. Taehyung was always sensitive after a blowout with his mom, after so many occurrences they adjusted to a routine. The younger would come over to pick Taehyung up, neither of them having vehicles, and they would walk around. Talk, joke, be playful, the usual as other seniors in high school would. Taehyung never vented to him about what had happened, maybe a brief summary with attempts of comedic undertones and Jeongguk would never pry or argue. The time it did, it just made things worse for Taehyung.