ONLY YOU

10. DREAMS

It's not until the early hours of the morning that Jungkook's brain gives in and allows sleep to claim his consciousness. Even then, he has to fight for dominance against nightmares that attack with vicious vividness.

They hadn't visited in so long that Jungkook had forgotten the power they held over him. The muddled images of a small boy and a terrifying woman towering over him are always accompanied by this phantom pain that jolts him awake as if he's been slapped.

Jungkook wakes up after three hours of closed eyes to stare at bloodshot ones in the mirror. His body aches from tensing during the night. Every morning he feels more exhausted than the night before. With a heavy hazy head, he frowns his way to the kitchen.

The kettle rumbling to life, while comforting with its promise of coffee, does little to lift his mood. No one else has woken yet so Jungkook has the kitchen to himself, but the silence is suffocating once the water is boiled. He mechanically pours the boiling water over his coffee granules, watching the mug filled with the bitter liquid that promises to wake him up.

The monotony of stirring his spoon back and forth, back and forth, maddens Jungkook into thinking about him. In the reflective surface of the steaming coffee, Jungkook sees not his own face but his. He snaps himself back into reality, angrily dispelling the image of his disappointed face out of the reflection of the coffee and out of Jungkook's mind with a flick of his spoon. If only he could erase that look from the inside of his eyes. It had been years since Jungkook had thought about him, but the dreams always made the fear re-surface.

He presses his cold hands against the mug's heated exterior, hissing as it attempts to circulate life back into his cramped and dry bones. It's been days since Taehyung fainted, but Jungkook still hasn't visited. The group had set up a rota of sorts so that despite their busy schedule, Taehyung wouldn't be alone for too long.

Jungkook had completely ignored the timetable Jin had stuck to the fridge. Visiting Taehyung wouldn't do the elder any good. Every time he and Jungkook interacted lately they ended up fighting.

Taehyung would probably just ask him to leave.

Jungkook was pretty sure Yoongi had been taking all his time slots anyway. He could hear the older boy stumbling in late the other night. Jungkook apparently wasn't the only one ignoring the rota. Taehyung would rather see Yoongi or one of the other members instead, Jungkook was sure of it. Still, every day as he made his morning coffee, he couldn't help but check when his next slot was. He wasn't surprised to see Jin had put him down for 10 am 'til lunchtime for today as they technically had the morning off to do whatever they wanted.

Jungkook had been toying with the idea of practising or working on compositions since his brain wouldn't let him sleep in, but maybe he should visit Taehyung. If he went early enough Taehyung might still be asleep, but what if he wasn't? Jungkook wouldn't know what to say to the elder, but he was his friend. He had to go, right? Jungkook's conflicting thoughts were interrupted by a sleepy Hoseok hanging off of him, begging the younger to make coffee.

"Let go of me first. I can't make coffee with you hugging me like a koala." Jungkook grumbled playfully, detaching himself from the clingy elder boy.

Jungkook tried to focus on the half-finished song in front of him, but the notes seemed to float off the page and mock him. He just couldn't concentrate on the beats, on lyrics, on anything. Jungkook had hoped going to his workroom would help distract him. He had hoped the music blasting from his speakers would quiet the small voice in the back of his mind that kept telling him to visit Taehyung.

He knew the guilt would just keep slowly eating away at him.

There was no use in avoiding Taehyung like this. It wouldn't keep the guilt at bay. He should never have forced the younger boy to reach up and get those stupid snacks. It was all his fault and here he was, being a coward hiding away in a cupboard like a child. He just needed to suck it up and apologise. So, before he could convince himself otherwise, Jungkook grabbed his jacket and headed to the hospital.