Forever By Your Side

20. When I first saw him

"So I met these guys two years ago" Seojoon started. 

"I started going to their clinic because of my mother. I used to go to their clinic regularly. Like, almost twice or thrice a week. So we became quite close that way. But I never knew that another guy lived with them.

And they had this weird thing of not working together. They kinda take shifts. One stays home while the other works. I never actually understood why they did that until I met Tae. 

One day, when it was Namjoon's shift, there was no one in the clinic. Just Namjoon and I. We were just talking casually and then Yoongi suddenly barged in. Like, he literally banged the door open.

And Namjoon immediately stood up, as if he already knew what the problem was. Yoongi ran straight towards the supplies and took some bottle with him and ran back home. Namjoon also ran behind him. 

And because we were close, I followed them too. Their house was in the same street. So, when I went there, I saw Yoongi in the living room, with another guy in his arms and the bottle and a syringe by his side.

It was clear that he sedated him. So I kinda figured out that Yoongi came to the clinic for the sedative. Namjoon went and took the guy and went to the bedroom. When he came back, they apologized to each other for not noticing that they ran out of sedative.

And then they looked at me and looked at each other and then asked me to not ask any details and that it was not their secret to share. 

They gave me some coffee and told me that the guy was their 'younger brother'. I mean, he isn't their own younger brother, but they treat him like one. They said that he had gone through a lot lately and that he had some horrible trauma. 

I didn't ask for any details because it was literally none of my business. They said that his name was Kim Taehyung. It went on like that for almost a month or so. 

They introduced me to him after a few days and he was such a sweet little pie! I'm not gonna lie, I completely fell in love with him. Not romantically! I love him like a little brother. And he also started loving me and trusting me. 

I kinda visited him regularly and that way I got to see a few horrible triggers. But they never explained the reasons to me, and I never asked. Every single time they just had to sedate him. They had no other option.

It hurt, you know? Even to watch him cry for help, trapped in a reality only known to him, unable to differentiate between reality and hallucinations, it hurt very badly. 

They used to cry every single time they had to sedate him that way. And I used to offer them a bit of emotional support even though I didn't know what actually happened.

I figured out a few of his triggers on my own. First is the scar on his left hand. Never even talk about it. I learnt it the hard way. And never talk to him about siblings. For some reason, the second you talk about siblings, he gets horribly triggered. 

And he is afraid of the dark. Completely scared. The three of them sleep on the same bed, you know? Namjoon and Yoongi sleep on either sides of Tae and they cuddle him as much as possible to provide warmth and support for him. They said that it was to assure him that they were there for him.

Apparently, he gets horrible night terrors. They avoid sedating him as much as possible, but it happens every single night and they give him sleeping medicines every single night. It seems in the starting, even those sleeping medicines didn't work. They just had to wait until he fainted on his own" Seojoon explained. 

"But Yoongi said he hates cuddling" Jimin said.

"Yeah, he does. But not when it comes to Tae. Like I said, it is more of a protection for Tae than anything else. And believe me, Namjoon and Yoongi love him so much that they would literally go to any extent if it was meant for Tae. 

So yeah, it went on like that for a while. And then one weekend, they decided to take him out. They already took him out, but they never went beyond their lane. They just took him for a walk till the end of their lane and back. 

So that weekend, they decided to take him for a picnic or something like that. To a farm in the outskirts. And they called me too because Tae trusts me. So now comes the horrible part.

I went to their house in the morning. Everything was packed and Namjoon and I put everything in the car. And then they locked the house and we went out. The second Tae realized that we were going in the car, he started crying. He didn't scream or anything, but he started crying very pathetically. 

Now, they didn't know that Tae was scared of cars because even they didn't know what exactly happened to him. They were just helping him deal with the aftermath of whatever happened, but they weren't there with him when it happened and they never asked him because of obvious reasons. 

Like, just the sight or name of a few things trigger him so badly! So obviously there was no way they could ask the boy what happened without giving him a heart attack. They just connected a few dots themselves, I guess. They just avoided the stuff that they thought triggered him. 

So anyways, that day we first tried to cool him down by holding his hands and telling him that it was gonna be alright and we love him and all that. But again, our words didn't work and he started hyperventilating. It was very horrible. All three of us were literally on the verge of tears. 

Yoongi was sitting in the driver seat while Namjoon and I sat in the backseat with Tae. We were sitting on either sides of him, so we could feel how horribly he was trembling. 

Yoongi came back and tried to cool him down, but again, nothing worked. So we were just about to get him out of the car when his breath suddenly hitched and he fainted.

For a few seconds, we thought it was normal fainting. But then, Namjoon checked his pulse and there was literally almost no pulse. It became very hectic after that.

They looked at each other and were like 'his heart must be weak' and then they called the ambulance and Yoongi went with the ambulance while Namjoon and I went behind them in the car. 

All the way, Namjoon kept mumbling about not realizing that his heart must have been weak. I tried asking him and the only answer I got was 'We should have realized earlier that his heart would have been damaged. We are fools! How could we not think of that? It's been a year now, and we never thought of it.'

I didn't understand what he said, but I didn't ask further because he was clearly very distressed about it. So we went to the hospital and Yoongi was waiting for us. He said that the doctors were working on him. Apparently, he had a fucking heart attack!! Can you believe it?" he asked.

The other three gasped and moved closer to Seojoon.