Begging Me To Beg For You (vkook)

48

    "I shouldn't have made him leave,"

    "Don't do that to yourself, Taehyung,"

Yoongi sits next to Taehyung on a bench outside of the hospital, staring off into the distance. Three days have gone by now, and neither of them were functioning on much sleep at the moment.

Taehyung brings the cigarette in his hand to his lips, taking a pull before handing it off to Yoongi who takes it without much thought.

    "If I would've asked him to stay this wouldn't have happened," Taehyung continues. "He'd be okay right now."

    "If this didn't happen now it would've just happened later," Yoongi says handing the cigarette back. "We couldn't have prevented this, Taehyung."

    "I don't think I'll forgive myself if he doesn't wake up, Yoongi," Taehyung sighs. He wanted to cry, he felt the urge, but after three days he was all cried out.

Now he just felt numb, and confused. When he wasn't feeling numb he was feeling guilty.

He wishes he could go back in time and beg Jeongguk not to leave the apartment that day. He wishes he would've fought harder to keep him safe.

    "You did all the right things, Taehyung," Yoongi tells him for the umpteenth time. "All we can do is wait right now, okay?"

Taehyung nods, he knew Yoongi was right.

~

Jeongguk never had dreams. Not figurative dreams, like dreams of the future, but literal dreams.

As a child he would go to sleep and hope to dream of himself some place else. Some place bright and warm. Some place where he could do and be anything he wanted.

But every time he fell asleep he drifted off into nothingness.

It made him sad at first, not being able to live vicariously through his unconscious imagination.

But he learned to embrace that nothingness. He learned to love it. He learned to be grateful for that brief time of not having any thoughts, feelings, emotions, or concerns.

The first time he got high, when he was fifteen, he realized that he could dream while he was awake and still feel that nothingness.

When he was high, he felt like he could do anything. He felt invincible, almost.

He realized he could go to that happy place he always longed for without having any thoughts, feelings, emotions, or concerns.

When he realized that, he thought he'd cracked the code to eternal happiness.

But he quickly realized that those feelings were temporary. He realized that, after a while, he'd need something stronger. He'd need something more dangerous to reach his happy place.

And ever since then he's been trying to find that something.

He thought he found that something in weed. He thought he found that something in cocaine. He thought he found that something in OxyContin. And he thought he'd find that something in heroin.

Each time he got closer and closer to that happy place but he'd get stopped right outside the door.

The first time he overdosed he didn't know what was happening. His eyes wouldn't close, his arms wouldn't move, and his lungs wouldn't breathe. His heart felt like it was going to explode.

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't scared. He'd be lying if he said the first time was the last.

No matter how scared he got, or how close he got to losing himself, in the back of his mind he knew that he'd keep trying.

He'd keep trying to reach his happy place.

    "When is enough enough?"

    "When you're dead,"

    "Do you want to die?"

    "No...I want to live,"

The first time scared him, but not enough. The second time scared him to the point that he almost quit...almost. The third time all he felt was disappointment. And the fourth time he hated himself for even waking up.

    "It'll be more painful to live than to die. Do you still want to live?"

    "...I want to live,"

    "Then you have to find a new happy place,"

What scared him the most about the fifth time was that it was his first time doing heroin. He thought his body was going into shock and that he'd go into immediate cardiac arrest.

Waking up in the hospital felt like a dream. He thought, that after all these years of nothingness, he was finally dreaming.

    "Am I alive?" He asks himself.

    "No...but your heart's beating," He responds.

He forces his eyes open. Before he even registers the amount of pain he's in he has one thought.

Where's Taehyung?

    "Take it easy, sweetheart," A nurse says. "The doctor will be here in just a second."

Jeongguk never had any ambitions in life. His only goal was to escape his father. After he managed to get away he had nothing else to hold onto, nothing else to work towards.

It's hard achieving your life goal at the age of fifteen. It leaves you feeling lost, useless, and unnecessary. It leaves you feeling as though you have zero purpose.

One thing Jeongguk could say about himself is that he wanted to live. He wanted to be alive to witness life around him. He wanted to be alive to witness accomplishments, even if they weren't his own. He wanted to be alive to love and to be loved.

Maybe he had no purpose in life other than to be alive. Maybe he was fulfilling his purpose by simply existing.

    "Jeongguk,"

He turns his head and finds Taehyung walking towards him, a bit of caution in his steps—as if he wasn't sure if he could approach him.

    "Hey," Jeongguk forces out, his voice barely audible.

If his purpose was to be alive, he wasn't doing a good job at making sure he made that happen.

Taehyung cries as he reaches out and takes his hand. "I thought I was going to lose you."

Jeongguk nods, he still wasn't sure if he was dreaming. "I-I think I really need to get some help."

He's not sure why those words open the floodgates inside of Taehyung, but he understands.

He's said those words a million times, he knows.

Each time he's said it felt different. Like he really meant it and like he was really ready. But this time genuinely feels different from all those times before.

This time he feels like he's accepted the fact that the happy place he's been trying to reach isn't some imaginary place inside his doped up mind.

His happy place is here, his happy place is on the outside.

He doesn't regret waking up this time, he doesn't feel like a disappointment, or a burden.

He feels like this was his final straw, like this was last time he could do this to himself and the people he loved.

The person he loved.

He may not have a dream when he falls asleep tonight, but he could dream of the future while he was awake.