[not proofread because i'm procrastinating --- i'll do it soon lol]

taehyung decided that he was going to leave the treatment home and get a breath of fresh air just one more time before he died.

at promptly 3:00 a.m., he would put on a few layers, pack a backpack full of necessities and sneak out. where would he go? he wasn't sure, but he would return that night.

up the road?

or down?

he sat at the dinner table watching everyone eat. his stomach was painful, gnawing hunger trying to claw its way through his skin, but he ignored it. jungkook kept glancing over, concerned, and jimin did too.

taehyung ignored it completely.

by midnight, everyone was fast asleep in their beds except for taehyung. he sat in his bed with the moonlight shining over him, running fragile fingers over fragile bones. he was at his lowest weight, and he knew how awful it was. if he didn't look like death, he sure felt like it.

he stared out the window until he saw the digital clock beside him click to 3:00, and then he got up. his legs were shaky and too weak, but he managed to force himself to stay upright and pick up his old backpack. he had already packed. now he just had to leave.

taehyung tiptoed slowly down the stairs, holding onto the railing to keep himself standing. the world was spinning, literally, and he felt slightly faint, as he had felt for the past few days continuously. i guess this is what slow death feels like, he thought.

to his relief, he reached the front door. carefully, he twisted the door knob and opened it silently. when the door was opened wide enough for him to slip through, he went outside and closed it.

he was out.

taehyung started walking across the lawn, looking back at the house once before he turned away and didn't look back again. he was just leaving for a bit, but why did it feel so permanent?

he looked at the road in front of him.

cars passed by occasionally, but there weren't many at three in the morning.

up or down?

taehyung remembered yoongi and the box that he had wanted to bury.

the tree.

taehyung smiled softly and made his decision. he would go up the road.

* * *

december 26th 2015
journal entry 185

i don't know where everything went wrong.

i had been doing fine for so long. i thought i was normal again. where did it go wrong again? or had it never went right?

normalcy is a false concept. what is normal? who decided what was normal and what was not? normal is different for everyone, so maybe this is my normal.

maybe my normal is my eating disorder.

maybe it's just always going to be here, an invisible phantom whispering curses into my ear and forcing me to believe its sick, twisted words. maybe it will always be this endless, painful cycle of normal and not so normal.

maybe this is how i'll die.

-taehyung

* * *

yoongi sat up in bed when a nurse walked into the room with a tray of food.

"lunch," she said. "and then you need to take your medication."

"when do i get to go back?"

the nurse stopped for a moment, freezing before setting the tray onto the bedside table. the air was oddly tense.

"when you're well enough," she said.

"i am well enough," yoongi replied. "can i go back?"

"that's up to doctor kim, honey. you need to wait a bit more, okay?"

she smiled, placed the tray beside him and left. yoongi let himself relax back into his pillow, rolling up his sleeve to see the cut he had made the night he tried to kill himself. it was deep, deadly, and he really could have died that night.

he touched it lightly, wondering how the boys were doing at the treatment home. he remembered laying in the bathtub with seokjin beside him. taehyung had stopped in front of the bathroom for a few seconds, gaze landing straight onto him and expression immediately shattering into pieces that would never be put back together. he had seen a single tear fall down his cheek before he turned away and left, wearing an oversized shirt - though everything seemed too big on a body that had starved for two years. he had looked small. too small.

he would convince doctor kim to let him go back. he needed to.

* * *

taehyung had now been walking for a few hours. his legs were weak and his mind was foggy, but he kept going. he needed to breathe. he needed to be alone. he needed it and he deserved it.

his backpack felt too heavy on his bony shoulders, hugging his bones painfully. it was physically grueling, too harsh on his weak body, but it felt right. he had needed this; he had needed one day of hypothetical freedom before he died.

the sun still had yet to rise. the sky was dark, swallowing the colors of nature in its embrace of death. the air was cold, at least to taehyung; it seemed that the entire world symbolized death in one way or another, and it seemed fitting, since taehyung was dying anyways. he was surprised he had lasted so long. he really should have died a month into his stay at the treatment home, but the boys had kept him going for a bit.

seokjin with his warmth and his words, namjoon with his tattoos and scars, hoseok with his smiles and hugs, jimin with his support and care, jungkook with his innocence and fears... and yoongi.

yoongi had kept him going too.

it had been all six of them that kept him alive, and the second that yoongi was pulled away and forced to let go, everything had fallen apart into shambles. for a few months, taehyung had managed to see some beauty to life.

the beauty had been stripped away when someone he loved came so close to death, because death was complete juxtaposition of beauty. death was darkness and bloody knives cutting away at the features that made a human what they were. colors, shapes, life and happiness were all overshadowed by it the moment that yoongi disappeared. with one piece missing, the one thing keeping taehyung going was completely incomplete. it fell.

so here he was, walking endlessly on shaky legs that barely had the strength to hold him up. things had fallen apart long ago, and now taehyung was merely picking up the pieces.

he sat down for a moment to catch his breath, looking up at the sky to face the moon.

the moon was quite beautiful.

a/n:
almost over! i'm guessing there's going to be around 2-3 more chapters.

life update bc i trust you guys more than i trust my family lmao: i've been eating fine lately, but there's no saying when it's going to go to hell again lol. i honestLY thought i was done with this a year or two ago, and i gained weight and everything, but i think what happened was my physical health got better while my mental health didn't...? i just want it all gone, and i just want to feel happy with my body (ha), but we can't always have what we want, i guess.

sorry for being so depressing lmao (but clearly you're all lowkey here for that cause all i write is angsT). see you with the next update!