Sterling

Chapter Twenty-Five

Everything was falling apart.

Jungkook was now fully ignoring Taehyung, and he had not the slightest clue why, his parents were back home and making his life a living hell, he arrived at school with fresh marks, bruises, busted lips, aching muscles, bones that felt like they were broken and on fire, pounding headaches, and he felt like something was sitting on his chest making it hard for him to breathe.

He was literally miserable.

His friends noticed the bruises and the way Taehyung limped and whatnot, but they figured Bogum had gotten ahold of him before they could protect him, so they didn't say a thing about it besides asking if the small brunette boy was okay. All he did was give them a lame nod of his head as he avoided them the rest of the day-or at least tried to.

It was hard when he had most of his classes with his best friends, and when he entered each classroom, there were nothing but stares, weird looks, whispering, pointing, snickers, and laughs. He felt humiliated just because of the way he currently looked. His face was completely covered in bruises and cuts, the back of his head where it had split open was aching and still bleeding, so he threw his hood over his head so no one could see it.

He knew he needed stitches, but there was no way he was going to a hospital. There would be too much questioning, and not to mention there was no way in hell his parents were going to be nice enough to take him. And he surely wasn't going to tell his friends about what happened either, so he was stuck with a pounding headache, a room spinning and making him feel nauseous, a churning stomach, and vision that was constantly fading in and out.

He remembered after their little fight how his parents just left him on the floor in a pool of his own blood from where it was seeping from his split open head. He was cradling it, praying for the pain to finally stop so he could get up and off the floor and head to his bedroom. He didn't want to be around them anymore, so he had to force himself to stand up with wobbling legs and heavy limbs as his head spun from what he assumed was a concussion his father had given him.

He had locked himself in his room and didn't attend school the next day due to his insane migraine that he couldn't seem to get rid of. He did go the next day after his day off, and it just so happened to be Friday, the night of Jungkook's football game. The raven-haired boy wouldn't even look at Taehyung, and as much as it would normally have hurt him, he didn't really care anymore about anything.

It didn't bother him anymore that Jungkook was now some stranger to him, and it didn't bother him every time the boy walked right passed him, or looked right through him, as if he were never even there. The rumors didn't come to a halt nor did they slow down any either, and the rumors about how he and Jisoo are supposedly a thing now disgusted him. And he wondered if that's why Jungkook had stopped speaking to him, because ever since those rumors started flying around school, he noticed how Jungkook didn't even come sit with them during their break and just left instead.

The rumors became more frequent, and that's all he was hearing now. It was always about him and Jisoo being an official couple, and all he could wonder was who in the hell started this one, because he and Jisoo absolutely hated each other's guts. He had remembered the other day when she had come to their table, and all she did was harass them all. The thought of him even being with her in any kind of way disgusted him to no end, and he absolutely hated the rumors that were being spread about them currently.

So he wondered if that's why Jungkook was avoiding him like he had the plague. But whatever reason it was, he didn't care anymore. His life was a shit-show, everything was falling apart, and his father's words we're echoing in his ears, his voice on repeat in his head, and he couldn't get it to stop. He knew his parents wouldn't care if he had finally took a blade to his wrist and slit a vertical line down it, because if it killed him this time, that was just an upside for them.