"Are we still not talking?"

Jeongguk disappeared for over two weeks. They probably wouldn't have ever found him if they didn't call the hospitals in the area every night looking for him.

On the sixteenth night of his disappearance Doyun called the hospitals and found out that Jeongguk had been admitted a few days before.

When he got there Jeongguk was awake but still slowly recovering from a fentanyl overdose. Whoever sold him the pills told him that it was percocet but it had been laced, it was almost one-hundred percent pure fentanyl.

Doyun was pissed. He could barely look at Jeongguk when he drove him back to his apartment. He wanted to say that he was upset because Jeongguk screwed up so back, but he was mostly upset because he scared him to death.

To be fair, Jeongguk scared himself to death too.

"It won't happen again," He said to Doyun as they walked inside the apartment. "I've learned my lesson. I swear."

"You're a liar," Doyun said without even looking in his direction as he walked away. "I want you out of here in the next week. I don't care where you go."

"Doyun," Jeongguk started. "I'm sorry, I really am~"

"You overdosed on fentanyl, Jeongguk," Doyun said turning to him with angry eyes. "You don't get to be fucking sorry."

"I didn't know it was fentanyl," Jeongguk said. "The guy lied to me, Doyun. I didn't do it on purpose."

"I don't care," Doyun said. "After the week is up you need to get the hell out of my apartment. You show up to work, otherwise, don't fucking speak to me. Got it?"

"Doyun, please~"

"I'm done with you, Jeongguk. I'm fucking done."

That's how Jeongguk ended up moving into his room at the clinic. Yoongi lived there as well at the time so it wasn't too much of an issue. He understood that as long as he stayed out of Doyun's way he was in the clear.

After his overdose Jeongguk thought that he was done with drugs. He thought that was his final straw and that he wouldn't turn to them again.

But he still felt the urge all the same. He eventually went to see a doctor and—after an entire day's worth of testing and answering the same questions over and over again—they diagnosed him with bipolar disorder.

Unspecified.

They gave him medicine to help regulate his episodes and stabilize his mood but they didn't do anything besides make him feel like a walking corpse.

He tried to tell the doctor that he needed a different combination of meds but they told him that what they gave him was the best for him.

He tried to accept that, he tried to get used to feeling tired and heavy all the time, but he couldn't function like that. So he stopped taking them, promising himself that he would get back on them if he felt like he was having an episode.

Expect that wasn't really how bipolar worked.

He never recognized when he was having an episode until it ended and he realized what he's done. Sometimes he was able to pull himself out of a depression and other times he wasn't. But he would rather feel depressed and manic than numb and nauseous.

He was closing up one night when he saw Yoongi walking to him room. They hadn't spoken to each other since he went missing.

Jeongguk didn't want to be the one to break the silence, not wanting to overstep or invade the space Yoongi was giving himself. But it was excruciating at this point.

"Are we still not talking?" He asked, making Yoongi stop outside his door.

"What's there to say, Jeongguk?" Yoongi asked. Jeongguk was expecting him to sound angry or annoyed, but he just sounded exhausted. "I don't have anything to say to you."

"I'm sorry about before, Yoongi," Jeongguk said walking over to him. "I messed up. It won't happen again."

Yoongi shook his head as he turned to walk into his room. "You're full of shit."

"I mean it, hyung," Jeongguk said grabbing his arm. "Please, I'm sorry."

"Why are you even apologizing?" Yoongi asked looking up at him. "You're probably high right now."

"I'm not~"

"How am I supposed to know that? How am I supposed to believe anything that comes out of your mouth?"

Jeongguk sighed, letting Yoongi snatch his arm away and walk into his room.

    "I don't want us to be like this, Yoongi," He said. "I know it's my fault, I wish I could change what happened~"

    "I don't believe that, Jeongguk," Yoongi said sitting down on his bed. "You say that all the time but then you turn around and do the same things over and over again."

    "I don't know why I do it, hyung," Jeongguk said. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

    "You're manipulative, that's what's wrong with you," Yoongi said looking over at him, there was anger behind his eyes but it was mostly taken over by hurt. "You just want to keep doing whatever you want without any consequences~"

    "That's not true~"

    "And the second it's time to actually face reality, the second you wake up from a drug overdose so bad that you were in a coma for three days, you want to play the fucking victim," Yoongi snaps harshly. "You aren't the fucking victim, Jeongguk. I'm the victim, Doyun's the victim. We're both victims of your lies and your bad decisions."

    "Yoongi~"

    "You're an addict," Yoongi said, tears forming in his eyes. "You hurt people over and over again, you drain the life out of them until they're useless to you. You latch on to people and you make every single one of your problems theirs. You act like because you're helping me you're the one that has it all figured out but you aren't. You're just a fucking kid trying make yourself feel good by making it seem like I need you."

"That's not true, Yoongi," Jeongguk said, his voice didn't hold any sense of conviction. As if he didn't even believe what he was saying.

"It's not?" Yoongi asked. "Then why did you help me? Because you love me? Because you want to repay me for all the shit you've put me through?"

"Because you're my friend," Jeongguk said. "A-And I do love you."

"I love you too, unfortunately," Yoongi said with an annoyed expression as he wiped his tears. "It's fucked up, and I wish I didn't but I can't help it."

"Are you going to leave me?" Jeongguk asked.

"Where the hell am I gonna go, Jeongguk?" Yoongi sighed as he stood and walked to the bathroom. "We don't have to fight. We can just go back to regular and act like you aren't going to fuck everything up again."

"I'm not,"

"I don't believe you,"

~

Jeongguk was a liar, everyone in his life knew that by now.

He lied his way in and out of trouble, he lied his way through relationships, and he lied his way through his job.

He just lied and lied and kept on lying until things inevitably either worked out or fell apart.

When things did work out they didn't work out for long, and when they fell apart they fell apart suddenly. They crashed down around him before he could even realize what was happening.

When one thing fell apart he'd try to piece it back together but then something else would fall apart, and then something else, until he was just knee deep in the shambles of his own life.

He had decided too early on in life that he could never be sober. He was so dead set on this black and white way of living that he didn't even consider being sober.

But after another year of battling with his addiction he managed to finally clean himself up.

He didn't go to treatment, but he talked a lot with Jimin. Their relationship was actually going well for a few months before Doyun shut it down.

He didn't understand what the huge deal was, especially since Doyun wanted as little to do with him as possible. But after that Jimin changed.

He wasn't kind to him, not that he ever was. But there was just a strange dynamic between them. He became harsh and distant, he snapped at him easily and lashed out at the smallest things. Eventually, Jeongguk just started avoiding him at all times.

Doyun and Jimin weren't that much different in the way they treated him. But Jeongguk knew that he deserved it. He knew that they had every right to hate him for everything he's done.

But for some reason that didn't make it hurt any less.

Yoongi never looked at him the same after that year. They never talked like they used to, they never did anything together.

Jeongguk came to realize that, aside from previously being homeless, they had nothing in common with each other. They talked about work and that was pretty much it.

Jeongguk was grateful for what little conversation he did have with Yoongi, he was the only person he had to talk to.

He didn't know anyone in Seoul that wasn't either in the drug business or in an active addiction so he was pretty much completely alone.

He was familiar with the feeling, but that didn't make the loneliness any less lonely.

Whenever he got too lonely and he wanted to use, he just reminded himself of the three overdoses he's had since the first one.

All three times weren't entirely accidental. The second one was, the third not so much, and the fourth...by the fourth one he had just given up completely on himself. He didn't do it on purpose, but he didn't prevent it from happening in any way.

Yoongi showed up for him after the second overdose he had that year, but he didn't show up for the other two. Neither did Doyun.

He walked himself out of the hospital the last two times and didn't really speak of it. He knew Doyun got a call when he was admitted but he didn't mention it, so he didn't either.

After waking up alone after his overdose he felt like he had all the confirmation he needed to know that no one really cared about him. He felt like he was really alone in this world and that it didn't matter if he lived or died.

He thought to himself that everyone's life would be so much easier if he wasn't there. If would just go away forever.

He didn't use again after the fourth time, he was scared and he was tired of constantly chasing a high that never made that empty feeling inside of him go away.

So he stayed sober. He wanted to say he did it for himself but that wasn't true. He didn't know why he was able to do it this time, after it was so hard before. But he was glad that he was making Yoongi and Doyun's life easier by not being a fuck up.

As long as someone around him was benefiting from his sobriety he was alright.