[disclaimer: its midnight and i only had time to roughly proofread this lol:,-))) so please excuse any choppiness or grammatical errors; i'll go back and fix them soon!]

"what does that scar mean to you, taehyung?"

the rain outside pattered almost violently against the window across the room, hitting the glass with a soft plink and then sliding down it like little rivers. thunder boomed, and it was the soft, comforting kind of thunder that just lightly rang through the walls. taehyung ran his slim fingers down the long, vertical scar, fragments of the night coming back to him as he touched it more.

"does it mean anything to you?"

taehyung shook his head. "i'm not sure."

"how are you feeling right now?"

"comforted," taehyung said. "by the rain."

"the thunder?"

"it's soothing. fills up emptiness, and as much as i like feeling empty, i hate hearing empty," taehyung said. "besides, i need to feel full sometimes. being empty all the time would feel too lonely, dont you think?"

"yes, i do think so."

"and the rain looks pretty too," taehyung's eyes made their way to the window, fluttering open. his hand kept running over the scar as he stared out the window absentmindedly. "it's like glass in liquid form. and it just falls and gathers and splashes. glass that falls and splashes. that's what it is." taehyung smiled. "it's pretty."

"taehyung, you're making amazing progress."

"am i really though?"

"what do you mean?"

"this scar's never going to go away."

yoongi smiled. "but it's a scar, and a scar means the struggle already passed," he said. "once it fades, you'll probably be all happy and healthy."

taehyung pressed down on it, eyes running up and down the mark that ran over dozens of other horizontal lines.

yoongi got up to leave.

"i'll see you tomorrow, taehyung."

he was at the door when taehyung called out his name, and yoongi stopped.

"doctor min!"

taehyung waited until yoongi's eyes met his and locked gazes with him.

taehyung thought that eyes were beautiful.

he thought that they were more than just dark orbs in sockets. he thought that what they were filled with could never be reduced down to simply a part of the human body.

they were filled with emotion.

they were filled with memories and thoughts and ideas.

they were the person's feelings and ideas and personality, absorbed into a giant galaxy of stars and planets and darkness.

taehyung thought eyes were beautiful.

"freedom."

yoongi's eyes were now filled with confusion, and taehyung noticed.

"freedom?"

"that's what my scar means to me," taehyung said. "freedom."

°

"on a scale of one to ten, how tired am i?"

seokjin didn't wait for an answer and answered himself, his eyes drooping with exhaustion as he rubbed his nose with his left hand.

"twelve. that's how fucking tired i am," he muttered. "twelve out of ten. one hundred and twelve percent."

"it's one hundred and twenty," yoongi said.

"proves my point, huh?"

seokjin downed the rest of his coffee in three seconds flat, leaning into his chair with a green folder on his lap.

"i should have just quit high school and become a bum."

yoongi rolled his eyes.

"yes, a bum. go be a bum then," he grabbed the green folder from his lap and slapped him with it. "all you have to do is quit. it's not too late."

a few seconds passed between them before seokjin spoke again.

"what do you call a dog that's on fire?"

"don't you fucking dare-"

"bow wow wow."

yoongi shook his head. "what are you even-"

"the song dumbass. fire-"

"i thought you were tired."

"side effects of exhaustion include delirious behavior."

°

"what hurts you the most?"

"that's a very vague question, doctor."

taehyung's lips spoke with confidence, but yoongi saw through it.

he was avoiding the question. he didn't want to open up, so he was defying him to be able to get out of answering.

yoongi considered giving up and moving on, but he tried a second time.

"anything that hurts you. physically, mentally, emotionally."

taehyung scoffed.

"i don't know. sitting in here and having to tell you things about me hurts a damn lot."

"we already established that," yoongi laughed knowingly, sitting back in his chair. "what else?"

taehyung seemed to hesitate then, soft eyes losing focus and staring celestially into nothing. he bit his lip and absentmindedly rubbed at his wrist again, and yoongi assumed that touching his scar was a nervous habit of his.

"my uncle was an ass."

he tried to laugh, but the laugh came out as a bitter scoff.

"he'd slap me or hit me when i needed to be taught a lesson," taehyung said.

"you told the police that the bruises were from a biking accident."

"i was scared."

yoongi wondered to himself how many times a boy had to be hurt to give out; wondered if that had been what it had taken for taehyung to try to kill himself.

"and the getting hit was bearable," taehyung said. "the part that hurt the most was what he told me."

"can i ask what he told you?"

taehyung shook his head.

"it's... he called me ugly and told me to kill myself," his breaths were shallow as he spoke, as if he was suffocating in his own words. "he told me to die. he said no one would care if i did. and you start believing things like that when they're said enough."

"your parents?"

"they didn't care."

taehyung smiled bitterly, soft tears now rimming his dark eyes. he blinked a few times to rid his eyes of the tears and rubbed at them with his fist, turning  them red and slightly puffy.

"the police need to know about your uncle."

"it doesn't matter. i'm not going back home again anyways."

and yoongi wondered if there was a deeper meaning to taehyung's words.

was he implying that he'd never leave the hospital? implying that he would run away once he got out?

or was he implying that he would kill himself for good as soon as he left the hospital?

yoongi was too afraid to ask.

"is there anything you'd like to let out? or anything you want to ask, for a change?"

taehyung shrugged. "why did you become a psychiatrist?"

"what would you expect me to be?"

"i don't know. something fun."

yoongi laughed softly, eyes crinkling into crescents as the sound left his lips.

"i wanted to help people," he said. "i had a lot of people leave me because they were sick, so i wanted to help other people like them."

"sick as in?"

"in the heart. mind. they were ill and they never bothered to get help."

yoongi's smile faded as he went on, emptying out as his breath left his lungs and as his voice left his throat. emptying into gray, into aerosol and disappearing.

"do you miss them?"

"i miss them a lot."

"do you think people would miss me if i were gone?"

taehyung then sounded so hopeless, so hurt, and so very much like a child. his eyebrows tilted downwards and he was touching his scar again, antsy, as if he was afraid yoongi would tell him 'no.'

"taehyung, of course people would miss you if you were gone."

"would you miss me?"

yoongi didn't hesitate to answer, his response coming nearly instantaneously.

"of course," he said. "i'd miss you a whole lot."

"really?"

"really."