He remembered that night. They all went to NB to celebrate. It was about Hyosang finally scoring a girl or Hoseok winning a dance competition or something. No, it was Namjoon's birthday, he remembered it now. It was Namjoon's birthday on September and they all went to NB to get wasted. The Seokjin who didn't normally drink even managed to take a sip – a very lethal one because it knocked the man unconscious, he always ended up sleeping like a baby whenever introduced to alcohol. It was a fun night, of course, and Yoongi remembered laughing freely and drinking too much at that.

He remembered faintly Donghyuk teasing him about being too drunk to drive back home under the background of Namjoon's constant screaming and love confession to a certain Jasmine. He just shrugged it off with a sly smirk, saying that at least he could still drive forward on a lane just fine. Usually it was Seokjin who would drive him off, but seeing the man dozing off on Hyosang's lap, he just wobbled uncertainly towards his own car and decided to risk his life just a little bit.

In the end, Yoongi was behind the steerin­­­g wheel again. His headache was agonizing and he was going definitely too fast for the road. He couldn't blame himself, though, for he remembered wanting to go home as fast as he could. The smell of alcohol reeked the air and every headlight did nothing but make his eyes squint and his vision blurry. His palms were sweating and his heart was beating loud. Just a little more. Just a little more and he would be home.

He knew the street too well and he sure knew that there was this once intersection up front, the one he had to pass every time he had to reach his own apartment. From the distance, he could see that the light was green. It would be red by the time he managed to reach it so he practically did whatever a person would do on such an empty road at 3 in the morning. He stomped on the gas even harder and swerved forward even faster.

That was when his headache hit him again, much like a person swinging a hammer to his head. Yoongi groaned, closing his eyes for a few seconds, peeling one hand off the steering wheel to massage his forehead. It was something that he did for only a split second, yet the moment he opened his eyes, he could see someone standing right in front of his car, the lights hitting the figure. It didn't take long for him to even register who could it be, only to realize that there was indeed someone standing in front of his car with eyes wide opened, seemingly as surprised as he was. By then it was too late to hit on the brake, and oddly he didn't even try to. The car just kept on running and the figure was thrown from the road towards the window of his own car before rolling up towards the roof and disappeared from sight. His car was going so fast he even hardly felt the impact.

That was what happened.

No scream, no impact, no sound, just his car going fast and the body flew by over the roof of his car.

Yoongi went home after that as if nothing had happened, parked his car in the basement, went up to his own apartment and fell face first on top of the couch. He woke up the next morning with a terrible hangover and a retching feeling in his guts. He went on with the day as if nothing had happened. And the day after that, and the day after that, before he somehow retreated himself from the world with no apparent reason his friend had started to think he was crazy.

And Yoongi didn't know the reason as well, thinking that it was just the way that he was.

It wasn't that he didn't know, actually. He just simply forgot.

But something inside of him didn't, because a month later he met Park Jimin. A month later he started to hear voices and whispers. A month later, he started seeing the knives with that tingling sensation of melancholy at the back of his head.

Two months later and he repaid the girl for what he had done to her.

.

The first thing that he realized was the dull throb on the back of his left palm. His fingers twitched and he found his nails scraping against soft sheet that was definitely not his own. They were simply too soft for his liking. Yoongi waited for that light to seep into his eyes like what it always did inside of his living room. Instead, what intensified was the same dull throb that had been bugging him, coursing its way through his wrist.

Yoongi groaned, feeling his body sore and his head light. He blinked rapidly, bringing his left hand towards his eyes to rub it only to feel something tugging against it. When he opened his eyes the first thing he recognized was the IV attached to the back of his left palm.

"Hyung?"

He turned his head slowly towards the sound to his right, eyes and mind still attuning to his surroundings. Oddly it was the white walls behind the figure that he realized at first followed by the white-silled window at its right. There was no sunlight coming through for them, though, just pitch blackness staring back at him. Everything around him was white, that was indeed true, but there was that absence of light. Funny. Shouldn't afterlife be everything about blinding white light? Night had fallen, he assumed, then. Even more so, he could guess that the clock was striking three.

He blinked furiously only to find the figure of-,

"Namjoon?"

His voice was hoarse and nothing but a whisper, foreign to his ear just like the room he was in.

Namjoon was sitting on the chair to his right, face looking worried like hell, eyebrow scrunched and mouth slightly parted. Funnily, the first thing that he wanted to comment on was that, noting how he was fed up of looking at the same expression over and over again.

"Are you awake, hyung?"

And how stupid of a question it was would be the second thing that he noted afterwards. He groaned in return as he paid more attention to his surroundings again, to the IV pack hung above his head and the smell of antiseptic that invaded his nose like a plague. Even with the pulsing in his head that started to make its reappearance and the itching wrist, he could still tell that he was in a hospital. His finger moved instinctively towards his wrist only to find the rough texture of bandage, covering both of them. Where once was the scenery of multiples cuts lining themselves like a train track, now was replaced by rough texture of white cotton.

"We're so worried, hyung. Thank god Seokjin-hyung found you at the right time and-,"

"Yoongi?"

He heard a soft voice calling out his name, right now from the door towards his left. He shifted slightly from his position to catch the person's face, hoping that it was-,

Seokjin was standing there by the door motionless, chest rising and falling slowly every breath that he took somehow became apparent to Yoongi's eyes. The man just stood there for what felt like an eternity before tears started to pool from his right eye, running down his cheek afterwards. One single tear, before a smile cracked upon his face. The eldest was oddly-, happy. Relieved, even.

"Don't you dare do that again," he said, voice shaking.

'Do what?' he wanted to ask. 'Why are you crying? Why am I in a hospital? What happened? Why isn't-.'

And everything came rushing back again. The knives, Taehyung's words, Namjoon's lies, and Jimin. Jimin. Yes, he remembered it all. He remembered the words he said, the conversation they had and the knife on his hand. He remembered his soaking body and his heart beating slower. He remembered how everything felt light, how reality started to slip away and his vision blurry. But most of all, he remembered Jimin's existence, sitting next to him under the shower, smiling at him.

"Where's Jimin?" he asked.

Something changed in Seokjin's face the moment he asked, the eldest's face turning stern with his jaw clenched. He turned his attention towards Namjoon this time and his best friend didn't give him an answer either, face looking surprised instead before he cast his attention towards the ground as if avoiding his question.

"Why isn't he here?"

He should be, right? He loved the boy and he just proved that. Shouldn't Jimin be with him right now, sitting on Namjoon's seat or standing by the door like Seokjin was? Truth be told, he was disappointed for not waking up to see the boy's face. Because it always had been Jimin and it should be Jimin. He should be waking up to the boy's warmth. It was Jimin and it should always be him.

"Yoongi, listen. Jimin is-,"

Seokjin stopped then in midsentence, looking at him with expression he couldn't really make out.

"Is what, hyung?"

There was nothing wrong with Jimin, right? There shouldn't be because the last time the boy was just fine. Maybe he was simply going to school today. Maybe he'd gone home, perhaps, though that was so unlikely. He couldn't even imagine the boy being inside of his own house with horrible parents that shouldn't even share the same surname as his.

"He's supposed to be here. He promised he won't leave me and I've done-,"

Yes. What had he done, really? This time it was him who stopped midsentence, his itching wrist suddenly asking for more attention than ever for the first time since he woke up. He raised both of his hand and could only see the bandage rolled up nicely around it, hiding the view of something horrible underneath. What had he done under that shower, really? All with trembling fingers and clenched jaw, hissing from the slight pain as the tip of the knife etched his wrist. He witnessed the red river leaking out from under his skin, gushing out like waterfall from the two canyons that he carved upon the pale skin.

Jimin was there in every second, he knew it.

"What have I done, hyung?"

His mind went fuzzy again, everything slipping away as if it was just a dream. Just like a dream he was having trouble grasping upon them once more. Remembering a dream was one of the hardest things and Yoongi sure knew that since he got lots of them, both awake and asleep, both sweet reminiscence of memories or horrible nightmares of reminded sins.

"Seokjin-hyung found you in your bathroom with your wrist cut open, hyung. D-do you remember that, hyung? Do you remember what you did?" Namjoon said cautiously.

"I-."

The car crash, Jimin's smile, the moan, the knives, the blood. Everything came crushing down before disappearing again at the next second. Everything was a dream yet it was a gnawing reality. Everything was a reality yet it was nothing but a fleeting dream. What was which, he couldn't really tell.

"What is wrong with me?" he asked, his voice coming out more like a whisper.

He looked at Namjoon's face and then Seokjin's waiting for an answer. Oddly enough, he found one from Seokjin, something that was nothing but a small, weak smile that somehow meant a thousand words to him without actually uttering a single one.

.

He nearly died, that was what the doctor said. He felt like he already did, frankly, though medically he actually did for a minute or so before the paramedic resuscitate him. He was bleeding so much what saved him was Seokjin finding him under the shower and Taehyung who called an ambulance even before the elder found him. Though to his own judgement, he was still alive because his left finger trembled too much the moment he tried to cut his right wrist. People tend to cut too dep whenever they commit suicide by slicing their wrist, he had once heard, and that affected the nerve controlling motoric skill or some other biology shit he certainly didn't understand. So maybe, if he cut down deep enough, he would be dead long before Seokjin had found him.

Doctors came and by, checking up on his condition, flashing his eyes with blinding light and making sure that he was okay, though okay fell into various definitions for him. He was given a transfusion and after everybody had left the thing that he kept on thinking was how someone else's blood was now flowing inside of his own body. That was indeed a weird concept of its own, wasn't it? To have something foreign inside of him yet feeling like nothing had happened at all.

He fell asleep again that night after a series of tests and stupid questions. No one mentioned Jimin afterwards and he was glad that nobody did. He was confused, feeling like his own head was on fire. His memories were nothing but broken images of a hazy television, the image blurry and the sound hoarse. The nurses told him it was common after blood loss and waking up, but Yoongi felt it was the opposite.

He was more than happy as the drugs sent him off to sleep again. Everything became pitch black and Yoongi closed his eyes again this time to find himself sitting on his couch back at the apartment again.

The television screen wasn't cracked and everything was in place, no thrown out belongings or open cabinets. Most importantly, the moment he turned his head there was no missing knife from the kitchen. Yoongi let out a sigh, knowing that everything was fine, everything was perfectly okay. There was one thing that was missing of course, and the moment he turned his head he found him like always right next to him.

'Hey, hyung,' he whispered and the boy whispered another 'hey' back. There was Jimin right when he was looking for him. That exact moment was reality. He breathed and lived for that, just as much as he breathed for Jimin. What he knew next was the boy's lips against his like it had always been. It was his own finger ghosting along Jimin's sharp jawline and the boy's finger digging into his skin. It was teeth scraping his collarbone and impatient hand fumbling with the waistband of his pants. It was him being pinned to the couch and gentle hand caressing his wrist. It was animalistic growl and relentless pounding.

Jimin was deep inside of him just like it always had been, carving in and out of his skin. When he came it was white liquid staining his own hand. It was white noises filling his ear and white blinding light that took his vision. Jimin collapsed next to him, flushed and utterly beautiful. He smiled, wanting to turn around, to caress the boy's cheek and said how much he loved him. He wanted to say how he didn't want the boy to ever leave, how he wanted to wake up to his face every single day.

Yet as the words were about to escape his lips everything became red once again. It was red noises filling his ear and red blinding light that took his vision. It felt like he was plunged into cold water and he suddenly couldn't breathe. It felt like someone grabbing him by the hand, pulling him away from his beloved. Yoongi screamed, yelled and thrashed, feeling the restraining arm around his shoulder and torso. Someone was dragging him away and he could see Jimin at the other end of the light, going further and further away from him.

Someone was calling out his name from behind, telling him to stop struggling. He just screamed and yelled even louder. They were taking him away from Jimin. There was that one voice that kept yelling and he didn't care as long as it wasn't Jimin's voice.

"Yoongi, stop it you're hurting yourself!" the voice screamed.

No he wasn't. He was only being with Jimin. Why would that be wrong?

He thrashed again, using his elbow to hit whoever it was that had been holding him. It did the trick because whoever it was let go of him and Yoongi fell on the floor afterwards. Jimin was slipping further and he was afraid. He didn't want to lose the boy. He could see him, standing there miles and miles away from him. All he needed to do was to get off and ran back to his beloved.

He could hear the door being opened from behind and series of other footsteps coming in. Few seconds later and there were more than just one pair of hands this time, holding him tight.

"Jimin wait!" he screamed.

He flailed his arm around and thrashed yet it didn't do the trick. There was a sharp stinging pain on his neck and his limbs just suddenly shut down. The scream he emitted from his throat died down into hoarse whispers. Darkness took him in once again, but not before the red flashed once again in front of his eyes.

It was red noises filling his ear and red blinding light that took his vision.

And it was red liquid staining his own fingers as he just scratched himself open once again.

.

Yoongi couldn't really tell which one was reality or a dream. From time to time, he would wake up, headache swarming his own head and he honestly believed that his skull would explode in matter of seconds. Sometimes he would wake up with constant screams, demanding to know where Jimin was. Other times, he would wake up from another nightmare of his, one that he was already too familiar with. At one point, the nurses had to bind his hand with a leather strap and Seokjin fumed at that, telling the staff that they shouldn't be treating Yoongi like a madman.

Yet he felt like one already. Sometimes he remembered why he was there, what had he done. Other times, all he thought about was Jimin and only him. It felt as if there were two Yoongis. One that was struggling for the truth, desperately trying to swim towards the shore. The other was the Yoongi that fell in love with the sea and its terror, he didn't want to move and just let his limbs die upon him, letting the water invade his lungs and rupture his veins. He would die there and then and such an idea didn't really bother him at all.

There would be flashes of images from time to time, most of them being Namjoon and Seokjin. And Seokjin, he'd seen the man's cry too many times for him to remember now. None of them spoke about Jimin. They were just there, sitting on the seat right next to the bed from day until night.

One time, it was Hoseok who came and it was one of the good days for he didn't trash or scream that day. He just smiled sheepishly as the man cried in front of him, looking so ugly he couldn't tell whether Hoseok was doing that genuinely or simply making it up like he always disgustingly did.

"Seokjin-hyung and Namjoon didn't tell me straight away. They just told me yesterday when I got back. God, hyung. I should have run all the way here," he said, sniffling.

Seokjin and Namjoon didn't tell much people, he realized. There were no relatives (and he wasn't really expecting much), that much was certain. Donghyuk, Hunchul and Hyosang didn't come as well and he doubted that they knew anyway. His parents didn't show their faces, though they probably knew that their only son was spending his time in a hospital. After all, they got to pay the bill at the end of the month and he didn't really think that they would spare some time to go visit a lunatic in a hospital, even though the said lunatic was bearing the same blood as theirs. But overall, telling a certain acquaintance or family member that a person they knew was hospitalized for cutting their own wrist wasn't certainly the best thing to do.

Taehyung came though – or so Namjoon told him – once during one of his bad days so no wonder he didn't really realize his presence at all. And it was Taehyung who called the ambulance for him, his friends told him. It was Taehyung who gave Seokjin his keycard as well.

It was Taehyung who said that Jimin was his imaginary friend.

"How's the tour?" he asked.

Hoseok sat on the same seat Namjoon and Seokjin had been sitting for almost a week on his right. With him lying on his bed, he could see the thick bandage rolled up around both his wrists now. They had made sure it wouldn't be easy for him to pry them off again. In the back of his mind he thought that there were still skins that he could scratch his nails upon, it didn't necessarily have to be the wrist.

"A girl said I'm the most handsome man she's ever seen," Hoseok said gleefully.

Yoongi made a disgusted face. "She's lying to you. Or she really got an awful taste in men. No, scratch that. I bet she's ugly as hell."

"Hey, don't talk about my girlfriend like that!" Hoseok said, nudging him slowly.

"Your what?"

"I got a girlfriend, hyung. She's from Gwangju as well," he said again looking so proud Yoongi wanted to punch him in the face if he could.

"Jung Hoseok with a girlfriend. I can't believe it."

As much as he couldn't believe that he had a knack for getting fucked by a boy from behind.

Hoseok just smiled and they talked some more, the moment becoming obscene to him since normal conversation was something he didn't have for what felt like an eternity. At the end of the day, when they had nothing left to talk about and when Seokjin just got back from college to take on another shift of babysitting Yoongi, Hoseok looked at him with the same gaze that everybody have been giving him. That one particular look of pity and worry, as if he was a fragile piece of china that would break when they took their eyes off of him for just a moment.

"You're going to be all right, hyung," Hoseok said as he waved from the door.

He had familiarized himself so much with those words, yet he just smiled instead, knowing that the remainder of words that should follow would only be a lie for him to repeat.

.

He was acquainted with a woman named Jiyoon the next day, a beautiful thirty years old something with dark hair and piercing gaze. 'A psychiatrist', she said and Yoongi just gave this sharp gaze towards Seokjin who was standing at the corner of the room. Amongst other things that he couldn't remember, there was still one thing that he did. 'Brought him to a psychiatrist,' Seokjin had said once and he exploded right then. He wasn't crazy, he kept on thinking.

'She's going to help you,' Seokjin said and it made him doubt her even more. Could she, really? For there was only one person in this world who could.

"Do you want to get better, Yoongi?" she asked softly.

Her eyes were too piercing as if she could see right through him. Yoongi wanted to say 'I didn't trust you, you're a complete stranger' but he decided to look out at the window instead. She didn't push him too much and for that he was at least grateful, thanking Yoongi for his time (though he hardly ever spoken a word by the time they were together) and saying that they would be seeing each other again shortly.

Apparently, she wasn't the only guest he was having that day for a certain familiar figure stopped by in the afternoon, the said person yelling so loud he could even realize who it was before the figure stepped into the room. Having Taehyung visiting you in the hospital was certainly one of the worst things that could happen because it drew even more attention.

"Don't tell me you forgot your keycard and went all the way here to get it from me," he said with an annoyed look.

Instead, it just got the kid smiling wider. Taehyung did most of the conversation, of course, being the same oddball of loud noises with obscene string of sentences coming from his mouth. He just laid there on the bed and listened, oddly finding the boy tolerable for the first time. Maybe the elevator wasn't simply a place for them to hold a conversation in.

"I always promised we could spend the time together at your place, me, Jungkook, you and-,"

Jimin. Taehyung was about to say Jimin. It was the boy who said it first amongst other people, who pointed out that biggest hole in the picture that his eyes had been deceiving all along, as if reminding him how flawed a seemingly perfect painting that he had always deemed to be. Still it was Taehyung as well who made him believe in the lie that he had fabricated for himself.

"Look, hyung. I'm sorry about Jimin. I shouldn't be saying anything and I'm just-,"

"Stop it," Yoongi said, face turned towards the window again so that he could avoid Taehyung's eyes. His wrist had started to itch again slightly. He curled his fingers against the sheet.

"No, I shouldn't even start talking about Taeguk and Taekwon."

He shouldn't just stop talking right now, even, but of course he knew that shutting a certain Kim Taehyung up would be simply impossible.

"I don't know about anything and I shouldn't have-."

"You shouldn't even call the fucking ambulance!" he yelled.

People should have let him die. Seokjin shouldn't have gone to his house. He should have just sat there under the shower, letting life leaked out of his body. Only then would he be able to see Jimin because the him right now was just simply pathetic. Every breath that he took felt wrong. Every face that he looked at felt wrong. His skin itched like fire and the constant nightmare kept on plaguing him.

"We don't want to see you die, hyung!" Taehyung screamed as loud as he did. Even him screaming didn't get the boy to shut up, not like Seokjin who easily would. "Not Seokjin-hyung, not Namjoon-hyung, not Hoseok-hyung."

He clenched his fist. Hearing their screams, one of the nurse poked her head in, asking if everything was all right. No, everything was not all right. It was far from all right. It was from fine, far from being perfectly okay. Because those words were lies. It always had been like Seokjin kept on telling him and now his friends should be happy because there was indeed something entirely wrong with him.

"No, everything's fine. Yoongi-hyung's just a bit mad," Taehyung said again, picking up the same wide smile again as he turned his head towards the nurse, pretending like nothing had happened. The kid had always done that, receiving scream and yell as if it was no different than soft voices and kind words.

"Get out," he hissed at Taehyung. Yet the boy didn't move from his spot. He got up from the bed this time, hand reaching for whatever it was that laid on the table and threw them towards the floor just to make his point. It was childish of him but he clearly didn't care. It just happened also that the glass was conveniently sitting on top of the table, it hit the floor with a loud crashing noise.

He knew that Taehyung would be persistent but for now he was glad the nurse had urged him to do just as Yoongi told him to before he revert to throwing his IV bag instead.

Luckily, the boy obliged and he left Yoongi in the room after that, feeling like he was drowning in that ocean he had loved so much.

.

That night he woke up from his usual nightmares, the car didn't come to a screeching halt. The body rolled against the roof of his car and he was jerked back up into reality, his body drenched with sweat and heart beating like mad. His hand quickly ran towards his own wrist, only to feel the rough bandages against it. Before he knew it his nails were already scratching against it, trying to pry them off in a futile attempt. His wrists were itching. It itched so much it felt like he was doused in gasoline and set alight. Realizing that the bandages were too thick, he resolved to roll the sleeve of the patient gown up, and dug his nails upon the skin of his arm.

No, he should stop. He should stop now before he went insane again. Yoongi let out a desperate whine, bending himself with his hands digging into his own temple, prying it off from his own skin.

He hated this all, hated himself, hated how he ended up to be. The nightmare was still plaguing him and this time there was no Jimin in sight. He was left between living and dying. Even worse he wasn't granted the relief of the latter and the former had done nothing but torturing him. He needed Jimin. That was nothing in this world that could cure him but-,

He heard someone calling out his name softly over and over again before a hand was encircling his wrist gently.

"Hey, hey, it's all right."

It wouldn't, not when Jimin wasn't around.

"Do I need to call the nurse? What do you need, Yoongi?"

Jimin, he wanted to say, but his voice was hoarse and nothing came out but those little whines. Was he crying right now? He hadn't cried for years. Even after everything that had happened he didn't. Or did he? He couldn't really remember. Heck, what could he even believe in?

He felt warmth against his body and hands around him, a pathetic imitation of what Jimin used to give. It wasn't the same body that wrapped itself around him. It wasn't firm muscle and comforting heartbeat. This one was as rapid as his. Without looking at the person's face in the darkness of the room he could tell that it was Seokjin. Of course it would be. He would be the one who usually spent the night there.

Kim Seokjin whose heart he just broke. Kim Seokjin who breathed in his horrible words. The same Kim Seokjin who held his bleeding body from the bathroom all the way to the lobby.

"W-why did you save me?" he whispered.

Because at a moment like this he couldn't find the reason behind it, couldn't find the reason why he should keep swimming to shore when the sea was beautiful enough for him he didn't need anything else. It was just like what he had yelled at Taehyung that afternoon.

Seokjin tensed over him yet he didn't let go, he kept on running his hand over Yoongi's back.

"You could have let me bleed to death." And only then would he be reunited with his beloved. He would meet Jimin and the man just stopped him from doing that.

He thought that the elder would let go of him but instead he hugged him even tighter.

"I can't," he said. "And Jimin wouldn't want you to do that either."

Did he? What did he even know about Jimin?

"H-how could you know?"

Seokjin didn't answer. Instead he kept on patting his own back gently like a mother would.

"I don't," he finally whispered. "But a person who loved you enough wouldn't want to see what I did."

It wasn't Jimin's warmth that he felt that night. It was far from soothing, far from comforting. It was entirely a cheap imitation of a fireplace that he used to have, if such thing could be define by that. If those days on the couch were a burning fireplace this one was nothing but a simple lighter, a fragile light ready to burn out at any moment given, just as he was a piece of china in the verge of crumbling. Yet that night he felt like that little bit of sanity was back, just a tiny bit.

"Please don't let me see that for the second time, Yoongi."

For the first time he felt like he was nearing the shore, even for just a few inches. He finally did move forward.