His Boxy Smiles

Chapter 57

"Jiminie?" he breathed. "Kookie?"

They're crying... Taehyung blinked rapidly, confused, not quite getting what was happening. What's...- why?

He felt off- really really off- and it was giving him a headache because he was surrounded by silence just seconds ago, wasn't he? How come there was suddenly so much noise and pain? Everything was just circling around him in a lazy haze before but he was fine. He was content waiting though he couldn't quite remember who he was waiting for or what. But now... now...

He blinked again, brain struggling to keep up with what was right in front of him (or better put, literally right by his sides). It took exactly a minute for him to register the fact that it's Jiminie and Kookie and they are crying. Why are they crying?

His eyebrows furrowed, panic bubbling in his chest in an alarming rate. It was one thing to be stuck and unreachable inside your own head for what felt like years and then suddenly get startled back to a room, which was always under the deafening silence he feared so much, by an invisible pull, but to have to come back to his senses, all confused, with two people holding onto him for dear life was another thing entirely. Definitely. And that didn't help him with his disoriented state at all. It just made his head and heart pound harder for answers he didn't have.

"TaeTae," Jimin's hold tightened around him (which shouldn't be possible given how tight it already was).

His voice sounded so broken, filled with so much anguish that it spread all over Taehyung's body, making his chest contrict and seem like it was being torn apart.

Reality was painfully sinking in then, faster than what Taehyung could manage.

Jimin's crying. He's crying. Why is he crying? He turned to the other, Jungkook, who just seemed to bury himself further into his side. They're crying. They're crying. Yet he wasn't doing anything but staring, watching as if what was unfolding right before him was just some drama he's not even remotely engaged in, playing on some TV screen. He was so disconnected that he felt disgusting all together. How come I can't feel anything? Even as seconds ticked by, when he knew that his heart was threatening to explode with blot, he felt distant and just so... so... dull...

"H-hyung... Taeh-hyung hyung..." Jungkook murmured onto his neck.

The sobbing got louder then and Taehyung didn't know what to do so he looked up (although he didn't know exactly who he was expecting to be there) and saw them. His hyungs. His hyungs were there. They're there. All of them.

Taehyung's eyes suddenly blurred and as if triggered by it, something cracked within him; something akin to a wall or a shield he didn't realise was there until it crumbled into pieces. He didn't know exactly what it was but he suddenly found breathing a lot easier- though as reality became clearer, the weight in his chest became heavier.

Why are they here? How are they here? Am I seeing this right? Is this real?

Slowly, he started to feel. Then, all at once, everything came rushing in; the stitch in his side and the warmth of the bodies practically attached to him. Around his neck, he could feel the wet fabric of the hospital gown he was wearing against his skin, soaked with the tears of two of his beloved members. It wasn't only that though. If the panic that ignited inside him earlier was any palpable, it was swinging at him fully then. It was a lot to take in and for a moment, Taehyung almost receded back to where he previously was, where there were no ripple or rift but dullness and nothingness- because it was easier for him. There was lesser pain that way.

But he didn't want to go back there because Jiminie and Kookie are crying!

Quickly, almost like he needed to desperately amend something, he wiggled his arms free and made to sit up with the two still clinging onto him for dear life.