No One Saved Me ||KookV||

Chapter 8: His Life I

Jungkook's brain froze.

The voice from the other end of the phone seemed to have changed into another extremely unfamiliar and obscure language. He could clearly perceive each word, but couldn't understand what it meant when put together.

The staff from the Institute sensed his silence and didn't know if Jungkook would come or not. 

When Jungkook refused to answer their calls, they tried to contact someone from Taehyung's family. However, just as he mentioned Taehyung, his family hung up the phone. Therefore, Jungkook became their only chance to avoid sending the ashes to the public cemetery as a last resort- striving for Mr Taehyung's sake.

Although they didn't know Taehyung, they couldn't help but feel pity for such an end.

Jungkook smiled with difficulty.

"...Taehyung- isn't he undergoing surgery to remove his gland and bond?"

He must have heard it wrong. 

Ashes... was too ridiculous.

"How's his operation going? I just wanted to contact you last night. If the operation to remove the bond hasn't been done yet, you can take it easy. Just remove the gland." 

He spoke in a rare change of tone so relaxed that if his company employees heard it, their jaws would surely drop.

This time, it was the Institute's staff's turn to become silent.

"Mr Jungkook," the staff seemed to be at a loss for words, "Don't you know that Mr Taehyung has passed away?"

Jungkook's smile froze on his face, and he could barely hold his phone.

"...We just arrived at the address you gave us yesterday, the house where Mr Taehyung lived. We found that Mr Taehyung had passed away. We tried to contact you at the time, but unfortunately, you didn't answer the phone. We contacted you through your secretary, and your secretary said that you didn't want to hear about Mr Taehyung, so she had no choice but to give us a normal handling plan- because the Science and Technology Institute cannot take possession of the remains without a reason."

"Mr Jungkook, the Institute created a detailed autopsy report before dealing with Mr Taehyung's body. If you're unsure what's going on, you can take a look at it."

Jungkook's brain was still foggy and muddled when he hung up the phone.

But at the same time, his memory quickly traced back to that moment yesterday.
For the first time, his beta secretary, who had always been calm and self-controlled, showed a pale and frightened expression during the meeting, and even disregarded the low atmosphere in the meeting at that time, trying to inform him about that person's... state.

She opened her mouth twice but was indifferently interrupted twice by him.

He had guessed at the time that it had something to do with that person, but he assumed that that person was unwilling to undergo gland removal surgery and tried to ask his secretary for help.

How could... that person was... already dead by that time?

Was Taehyung really dead?

Moreover, only his ashes were left... He couldn't even see his body for the last time.

Jungkook still felt unreal. He could still obviously smell the other party's pheromones in Taehyung's room, he should obviously still be... this kind of hallucination-like self-comfort continued until the moment he arrived at the Institute and actually got the autopsy report.

"Mr Taehyung died of gas poisoning. The autopsy report showed that it was three days ago. The instrument also detected that Mr Taehyung suffered several years of depression before his death. Furthermore, two opposite pheromones from his alpha gland and omega artificial gland conflicted with each other—in short, he was both in poor mental and physical health, so we speculate that he committed suicide." 

The staff of the Institute summarized the content of the summary report and sighed, "The values and other information are clearly indicated on the autopsy report, Mr Jungkook can take a look."

Jungkook stood there blankly and unconsciously mumbled.

"...Suicide?"

He suddenly thought of something he should have forgotten.

The last time he spoke to Taehyung. 

That day, he was just handling official business when he received a call from him. He was impatient when he saw the number, but thinking that he was his partner, he picked it up when Taehyung called a second time— that person probably asked him meekly when he would be home again, or something like that.

Taehyung's tone at that time sounded a little different than before.

Light as a feather, as if it would be blown away the next second.

Taehyung seemed to blithely ask him briskly, "Will you come?"

He spoke in a rare aggrieved tone as if the two were lovers who hadn't seen each other in a long time— whispering to each other that it's been a while since the last time they met.

At that time, he only thought of ending the conversation as soon as possible, so he could get back to his own thing.

The last thing Taehyung said to him before he impatiently hung up was-

I don't regret it.

... Three days ago?

Three days ago.
It turned out that at that time, Taehyung called while preparing to die...?

In order to protect the environment in the new era, the ashes were compressed into the size of a capsule after cremation. When the object was handed to his palm by the staff, he was still experiencing a sense of vertigo and unreality from the almost non-existent weight.

That person, who silently waited for him and loved him for ten years, was forgotten by everyone.

Severe depression, mutual rejection of two pheromones...

And he suffered like that for several years...

In a trance, Jungkook seemed to see the warm to transparent smile and the increasingly thin body every time he went back.

The truth was, he was ill.

But he never cared.

The moment he died, he asked if he would come... Was he waiting for someone to save him? 

Save him from the poisonous gas that was putting him in deep pain, or, save him from the life that was making him suffer?

But he just hung up the phone.

No one saved him.

The Institute arrived two days later, but in those two days, he had no friends or anyone who would find or visit him... The villa was far from the city, and the strong scent of disinfectant he smelled afterwards was presumably only caused by Al cleaning the house repeatedly. The cold machine did not know that a person had died silently.

Just as this cold world did not acknowledge the silent presence of... that person for ten years.

...The last words Taehyung said to him was that he had no regrets.
Jungkook clutched the report after realizing all this and carefully unfolded it afterwards for fear of breaking it.

The staff didn't know what Jungkook was thinking. They only felt that the usually cold and indifferent person was suddenly out of his mind at this time. He himself still had something to do, and when he saw Jungkook looked like he would accept Taehyung's ashes, he was relieved and went back to work, leaving Jungkook alone in the lounge of the Science and Technology Institute.

That person was dead.

Whether it was Taehyung, whom he'd been entangled with for ten years, or Taehyun, who made his heart flutter for a moment.

...He was no longer there.