⚠️WARNING: this chapter contains mention of self-harm, bipolar disorder, anxiety, an eating disorder and emotional/mental abuse
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suff3ring.jjk

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_joon_ y'all disgust me ugh

$uga_ 🤍🤍🤍

seokjinnie1 CUTIES HFYFTEEY

jim.kardashian how's it feel being THAT couple? ugh 😩😩

sunshine.exe HUGS INDEED 🫂🫂🫂

tae_babyy such a needy lil baby 🙄

  ↪️ suff3ring.jjk shush, i just like cuddles 😖

jjiw00_ y'all so adorable ong 😔

rachel444 I WANNA BE IN THE MIDDLE OF THAT HUG

aaro.n NOW KISS!! HEHEHEHE

_sara_ i'm gonna throw myself off a cliff if i don't stop being single right fuckin now 😆

shooter.for.kth  taehyung still too good for this man

  ↪️ yourgirl_8 stay mad 😹

  ↪️ shooter.for.kth you felt the need to reply, it seems like you're the mad one 🤷‍♀️

  ↪️ yourgirl_8 you felt the need to search up jeongguk's account on insta just to leave an unwanted comment on it, babe. in fact, maybe you didn't need to look it up because you're probably following him like the fan that you are 🕺

  ↪️ shooter.for.kth fan of him? don't insult me "babe" 🙄

  ↪️ yourgirl_8 you're insulting yourself just fine, i ain't doing any work girlie. stay mad, i hope ya keep watch on your blood pressure😆😆

...
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jeongguk thought long and hard about how he would begin to say all this. thankfully, taehyung gave him all the time he needed to arrange his thoughts before he started speaking.

some of the memories were harder to retrieve than others since he'd blocked them out so deep in his mind.

he'd severed himself from his past so hard that he almost didn't remember any of it.

he didn't want to remember any of it, to be honest.

"my mum and dad were never the affectionate type..." was how he decided to start off his story.

taehyung listened closely.

"...not even with eachother. they're both introverts so i guess that's why they fell in love in the first place. this meant that they weren't the most loving towards me and my brother. obviously introverted parents can still be loving to their kids but mine were just never really the type to vocalise a lot of their feelings, much less let it show physically that they cared for us. especially not me. i think it's because i was never really planned. my brother was a wanted pregnancy but i was kind of a mistake, they just didn't have it in them to get rid of me. of course they never admitted it to me but i know that was the reason they hated me."

he took a deep breath.

"when i was a kid i thought it was normal that my parents never hugged me or kissed me or picked me up when i fell down but apparently not because when i started elementary school i started to realise how close the other kids were with their parents while i never even got asked how my day was by my dad. my mum let her emotions out a bit more than my dad but her emotions were negative most of the time so it wasn't really much progress being made anyway. "

as jeongguk explained his parents' seemingly cold personalities, taehyung couldn't help but think that maybe they're the reason why jeongguk was so touchy with the people he's close with.

it's because he was completely touch-starved as a child.

jeongguk continued, "the golden rule in my house was that children should be seen but not heard. never speak unless you're spoken to or if you have a question that's legitimately important. mum wasn't mum, she was ma'am or mother. dad wasn't dad, he was sir or father. no toys outside of your bedroom, no kids tv after 3pm, no snacking unless it's your birthday and absolutely no sleepovers or playdates. now that i think of it, my house was more like a bootcamp than an actual home."

"that sounds so dull." taehyung pouted.

"trust me, it was that and more. middle-school was probably the worst years of my life because it was when i fully realised the extent of how abnormal my life was compared to everyone else. all the way through middle school and highschool, i was mentally struggling. i hated school so much that i'd force myself to throw up my breakfast just so that i wouldn't have to go. i would have full blown anxiety attacks in between lesson periods. i was clinically diagnosed with anxiety when i was like fourteen. when i was sixteen i started to have weird mood swings. sometimes i'd be actually happy and full of energy and other times i could barely get out of bed in the morning without crying so hard that i'd throw up. my parents took me to a doctor to see what was wrong with me and that's when i found out that i had cyclothymia. less extreme bipolar disorder. i think that not knowing what was wrong with me made it worse but once i was diagnosed i learnt to cope with it better on my own."

taehyung looked at jeongguk. he looked like he was skipping over something. as if he was hiding or lying about something.

"is that all that happened during highschool?" taehyung asked.

jeongguk didn't really answer, he just shrugged.

"jeongguk?" taehyung pushed slightly, testing the waters.

jeongguk sighed, "highschool really sucked for me. like, a lot. i was failing all my classes, i wasn't eating, i was cutting myself, i was skipping school, i was in detention almost every day and i had no friends in my own grade. on top of that, my parents were being assholes about my grades. they wanted me to do well in school so that they'd have at least one thing to like about me. since i was failing abysmally, they would... punish me."

taehyung raised an eyebrow, "like, ground you?"

"no, like, lock me inside closets for hours." jeongguk stated.

taehyung's eyes shot up, "what?"

"if they got a call from my school about my behaviour or if they got a bad report card, they would lock me inside the laundry closet with a textbook and make me read a whole chapter out loud. when i finished it, they'd let me out. dyslexia runs in my family so it was harder than it sounds. to be honest, it wasn't the punishment itself that was bad, it was just the embarrassment of having to read out loud for them like a seven year old. if i wasn't eating enough at the dinner table, they'd force feed me in front of my family as a humiliation tactic. if they saw my cuts they'd scream at me and gaslight me, telling me that there's nothing wrong with me and that i'm just doing it for attention. one time my mum even cut a stripe across her arm with a kitchen knife to try and guilt-trip me and make me feel shitty about what i did to myself. she'd say that they only want the best for me but i always fuck up anyway. my dad would say that they gave me everything i wanted so it was selfish that i was trying to kill myself. i wasn't allowed to fight back about anything they said to me because i knew that speaking without permission was basically begging to get slapped in the mouth."

taehyung was mortified by everything jeongguk was telling him. he only realised that tears had been running down his face when he felt jeongguk reach out to wipe them.

what shocked him the most was how jeongguk spoke of all this like it didn't faze him and hadn't shed one tear yet. usually jeongguk was the emotional type, not him.

"my family... they want to see me but it's not gonna happen. i ran away from them as soon as i finished highschool and haven't looked back since. i was crashing on yoongi's couch for a while until he introduced me to seokjin who took me in. so yoongi, jin and hoseok became my new home. and even if it wasn't as glamorous as my parents' big house, the guys were more of a home to me than that place or any of those people ever were. i don't want to go back there and i don't want them to know where i am. i know that if they see me they'll know that nothing has changed and that i'm still a mentally ill failure."

taehyung wrapped his arms around him, "you're not a failure."

"i am, tae, you don't have to lie to make me feel better. i know i'm a deadbeat and i want to fix it, it's just- it's just hard. i wanna actually do something with my life but it's difficult when i can barely get out of bed some days. if it wasn't for seokjin, i'd be homeless or dead by now without a doubt." jeongguk replied, squeezing him tightly.

"you wouldn't be: not on my watch, that is." taehyung kissed his cheek, leaning his head on his shoulder.

jeongguk smiled slightly, a tear falling from his eye, "yeah, you're my little guardian angel huh?"

"don't cry, you'll make me cry again." taehyung laughed.

"but it's true. the only reason i'm able to smile anymore is you. the only reason i don't cry myself to sleep anymore is you. the only reason i'm not starving myself anymore is you. the only reason the scars on my arms are finally healing is you. the only reason it doesn't feel as shitty to get up every morning is you. obviously i have the other boys and i love them to death: they're like my brothers. however, i never knew how much i needed someone like you until the day i realised how hard i fell for you." jeongguk spoke honestly.

"i feel terrible that i can't do anything about what you went through. i can't even relate to you at all. all i can do is cry about it." taehyung muttered.

"it's okay, i don't want you to relate to any of my trainwreck life. i don't want you to ever know what any of this feels like. i've told you this before." jeongguk kissed the top of his head.

they sat in silence for a while, letting everything sink in.

"i'm glad you finally told me everything. i wasn't expecting you to tell me all of it today." taehyung admitted.

he'd originally thought that jeongguk would tell him section by section over a week or so. it was unexpected that jeongguk had decided to tell the whole story in a ten minute span.

"i'm glad i told you too. feels good."

suddenly, jeongguk and taehyung's phones went off simultaneously.

taehyung picked up his and jeongguk looked over at the screen with him and saw that it was a dm from jiwoo in the groupchat.

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material gworls💅👩‍❤️‍👩

jjiw00_:
GUYS!!! JACKSON IS THROWING A RAGER TONIGHT, YOU'RE ALL MY DATES TO THE PARTY WHOOP WHOOP 🕺

sunshine.exe:
LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOO, TIME TO GET WASTED

seokjinnie1:
ugh fuck, i'll get the car
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jeongguk and taehyung looked at eachother.

"party 2.0?" taehyung raised his eyebrow.

"party: the sequel." jeongguk smirked.

•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•

•1896 words
•not edited or proof-read
•HEYYYYYYAAAAAA
•"it's been a while" - jeon jeongguk, 2018
•i know it's been a hot minute but i finally updateddd
•you guys already know the reason why updates are slow so i'm not gonna explain it again
•i just wanna say thank you all for being so understanding and patient <333
•also, i'm in the process of changing all my book's chapter titles to capitalised english instead of lowercase spanish/french/greek
•it was a whim i had and i like the way it looks on this book so imma do it for the others too
•sigh, the end of an era
•that being said, the party is having a sequel hehehehe so look forward to the next update whenever the hell it comes out lmao
•STAY SAFE!!!
•i love you all <3333333

peace out xoxo,

nixy.