Death Formula | KTH ✓

15. And the Lost Child in Me

"How's your mother doing?"

How was she doing?

I couldn't answer.

I still remember that catastrophic night when my mother fainted in my arms. In the relentless pouring of rain and amongst the clamorous sounds of the lightning that jagged across the heavy moisten-laden clouds, I had my mother in my arms, lifeless.

I still remember going hitter thither, calling the emergency to get my mother to the hospital when she yet didn't gain consciousness. I was alone and nothing did make sense to me when Taehyung suddenly disappeared on the dot. In that predicament, the least I had expected was for him to disappear like a tremulous person, leaving me to strive alone in that situation.

I hadn't seen him since that night and I had decided to bawl at him whenever he would finally show up at home.

Yes, he hadn't come back home.

Taehyung's absence that night had only aggravated my annihilation as that was the time when I needed him the most. The only affable person I had begun to trust the most.

And now I hated to admit but I had started growing a certain liking for him - that I knew was ephemeral and irrequisite - not because he was handsome but because he had been doing something inestimable for me that I couldn't pay back even if I wanted to. He was helping me.

But the night he left me to struggle alone got the nerve in my neck tightened.

"Hey! You okay?" A small hand came into my line of sight.

It was Jimin.

"You can talk to me, you know." Said he, his soft eyes gleaming with undeniable worry.

I exhaled as I wiped my hands on the apron tied around my waist and placed them on the countertop. "I'm okay," I said, curtly.

No, I wasn't okay.

Jimin nodded at my response. "What did the doctor say?"

Yet again, I sighed as I looked at him with my dolefully sunken eyes. "He said she is in her last stage of cancer."

Again, life had slapped me right across my face with another barbarous reality that I now had to face. The reality that she was going to leave me like dad and Aera.

I felt a warm hand on top of my own. Slightly squeezing it, Jimin said sympathetically, "I'm really sorry for you. Wish I could do something." He replied, lips tugging down to form an innocent pout.

A raw, dried laugh tore from my throat as I looked at him with my inscrutable gaze. "What are you sorry for? There's nothing you could do about it."

There was nothing anyone could do about it.

"You may think of me as a persistent and annoying guy but as a friend yearning for your good, I must say that when things get tough, talking it out to someone can help."

He was right. I could talk to someone but the only someone my stubborn heart desired to talk was Taehyung.

Why?

Why was I looking for him?

What was he related to me?

Now that I thought about it, I knew nothing about him except his name and the address to the house he had sheltered me.

Where was his family?

Where did he work?

Why didn't he ever visited here, in the café when he was the one who told me of this job in the first place?

Did Jimin know him?

As I now started to realize that I could never really cognize Taehyung no matter how hard I tried, there in the depths of my heart began to settle an uncanny feeling that I was being shown only a certain part of an entire bigger picture which remained concealed to me.

The jingling of the bell rented the still air, consequently tugging me out of my reverie as I glanced up to see a group of boys approaching. My mouth went parched as soon as I recognized the figure amidst the group.

It was Hyunwoo.

Terror became an intangible force as it struck me mightily. Fresh tears pricked my eyes and all I could do at that precise moment was to spin on my heels and dash straight inside the staff quarters before slamming the door of it shut, spontaneously shutting my eyes too.

My knees began to give in slowly as I lowered myself until I was sitting down on the cold floor, my body leaned against the door.

When my ragged breathing started ebbing away and I began to peel open my eyes, I saw the man I had been longing to see before me.

Taehyung.

That was it.

I got up on my feet and Taehyung had no time for words when I clasped him in my arms, straight away wrapping them around his waist as I placed my cheek flat on his broad chest, letting the relentless tears stroke down, wetting the piece of fabric he wore.

At that moment all the anger that I had welled up, flew out of my mind and the only thing what amounted to something was his presence. His presence at the moment when my fear tied me in the shackles of my dark past.

And in such manner, I cried in his arms like a lost child.