METANOIA | TK

Chapter One

Hi!! This is my first English book posted on wattpad and I'm kind of nervous since it was supposed to be just an au for ao3? I hope you'll enjoy it tho!!

I wasn't going to post this because this book is very emotional and dear to me but here I am now, having a crisis over taekook and deciding to post it even if have like 3 unfinished books already sigh

Enjoy and let me know what you think about it for now

Also English is not my first language so I'm really sorry for any mistakes :)

Also, this book will contain mentions of depression and a lot of emotional issues so just don't read if you're not ready to probably cry.

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"I'm fine, hyung, you don't have to come check on me every night, alright?"

Namjoon looks at him with understanding eyes, already aware that he can't do anything to make him stop overworking himself to exhaustion but still worrying too much because that's just how he is — overprotective but careless at the same time.

"Just," he inhales "just make sure you eat something, okay? And don't overwork yourself all the time, Gguk. Rest a little once in a while."

Namjoon pats his hair and Jeongguk almost sighs at his touch, he always does. He misses, no, he craves human contact so much sometimes, during his weakest moments, that it physically hurts him when someone touches him, even a friendly pat on the head reminds him of how lonely he is — of how lonely he's been for a while. He's started to believe that loneliness was one of the worst types of pain out there, maybe even the most dreadful even if it wasn't physical, even if it couldn't be compared to the sorrows some people went through. Loneliness still felt like something Jeongguk thought no one should experience but, sadly, too many people did.

He watches as Namjoon gets up, both knowing that he wasn't in the mood to talk — he never really was — then he gets back under his blanket and puts his headphones back on so he can fall asleep. He eventually does but the coldness he feels when he wakes up around 4 am to stop his music doesn't disappear, being there, on his pale skin, even when the sunshine rays falling through his window wake him up.

The light on his face is warm but his whole body feels colder than ever.

Jeongguk lives like a mad man but he likes to tell people that the messes in his life and mind are not messes at all, more like organized disasters that he knows how to manage, when he actually doesn't have a clue. He'll tell people that the mess on his desk is just the way his life works — Why put everything away when you're going to use it again? This way it's easier for me, I can find anything I need faster — he'd tell Namjoon whenever the man stared at the multitude of books and random objects scattered on his desk. He knows it's not that, maybe half of them are based on that concept, but the rest of those messes are due to how sad he keeps feeling even in his happiest moments.

It's not his life that makes him feel like that, because, to be blunt, he has a pretty good life.

No, it's the lack of human contact he has, the lack of romantic love, those are eating away at his sanity and heart and he sometimes realizes that he's pretty damn miserable if he can let such an insignificant thing — love — mess up his life. He still lets it mess him up pretty badly because people don't have a choice when it comes to feelings at all, they just appear and disappear, leaving a bigger impact than they should.

The thing is, he's happy.

He has a few friends, really good ones, he goes out and has fun, he makes more money than he could've ever imagined he'd ever make as an architect — even if he's only 27 — but his happiness never reaches that peak of absolute joy. He's never smiled until his cheeks hurt, maybe he used to do that when he was younger or during his college years, but he thinks he hasn't done that in years. Sure, he laughs at Namjoon's jokes, he laughs while he's watching movies, but the pang in his heart is still present, still there, still eating and eating until it forces him to shut down everything and just drown himself in more depressing thoughts. He zoned out while eating, even while talking to his clients, and he sometimes finds himself thinking about how nice it would feel to be somewhere else — someone else.