Yoongi ran.

Away from Lisa and Jungkook.

Away from it all.

A few minutes before he had been running towards them. Worried about Jungkook's condition, he had tumbled past the receptionist who gave him the room number only to find Jungkook on a wheelchair, wheeling himself furiously out of the door.

The sight had knocked the world from under him.

Jungkook, who liked to dance more than sing, the hyperactive yet introverted dongsaeng who loved sports and basically just moving was on a chair with wheels. Yoongi found his feet unable to move as he watched Jungkook come to a sudden stop across the girl in front of a girl who seemed to halt him.

She reached out a hand.

It was when Jungkook took the girl's outstretched hand gently, that Yoongi realized that the other girl was Lisa.

She too must have been with him then, during the car accident.

Even with the wheelchair, Jungkook must've been worried for Lisa, Yoongi realized. It was then Yoongi saw the tubes connecting the girl to a mobile drip.

His feet was back tracking and suddenly before he knew it, he was running. He didn't know why he was running. Maybe because he didn't know what to do, maybe because he didn't know how to take care of people maybe because everyone near him got hurt.

He felt sunlight prick his skin like a thousand piercing needles and the wind tearing at the back of his throat as he opened his mouth and swallowed his scream.

Down, down.

He pooled in the misery, tears not breaking through even as his eyes stung.

He had never been one to cry.

He was always the one to keep it in and let the soul wound fester. Why? Because he deserved it.

Deserved it for not feeling remorse for handing over his dad, deserved it for not being grateful about the upbringing that his father like he was supposed to. He deserved it for being such a selfish person enough to let their mom leave their house.

His thoughts plunged into a dark swirling pools of self loathe and Yoongi suddenly wished that he had a shield on his mind from his own thoughts.

His apartment door was creaking open under his trembling hands before he knew it.

He frantically searched for the cigarette packet that he had discarded earlier, his only salvation against his frazzled thoughts.

He searched under the table, the kitchen top and finally under the couch. He reached out below the couch, spying something white and brought it out.

It was his lighter.

Y.K.

Yoongi's eyes scanned the letters written on the lighter and his eyes shuttered.

This was one promise he was going to keep.

So he gave up on the search for his cigarette packet, clutching the lighter in his hand tightly as he tried to keep those thoughts in bay, rocking back and forth restlessly on his legs.

A sudden warmth and stinging sensation spread through his finger and he yelped as his finger burned when he had accidentally pushed down on the lighter.

But it was oddly satisfying.

He felt at peace for a second.

So he brought that lighter to his fingers again and cautiously flicked it against the skin of his fingertips. It was warm and stinging. Painful and satisfying.

His breath began to come out in short gasps as the burning sensation increased and finally let himself rip away the lighter as skin blistered.

He watched on as skin turned an ugly shade of molten grey and green and the stinging remained the same.

Yes, this was definitely better than smoking.

*

Kyunsoo visited him that day, smiling and caring.

Everything he was not.

He did not know how it started exactly, the fight.

She had inquired about Jungkook and lisa and how they were doing.

Yoongi had avoided it, waving it off and saying they were fine. But Kyunsoo had kept at it, hounding for answers until Yoongi had finally lost it and said the truth.

That was when Kyunsoo had revealed that she had seen them in a hospital while she was visiting the inpatients and keeping them company. She demanded why had Jungkook stuttered and lied when she had asked if Yoongi had come to visit. She yelled at him, poking at him, reminding of the way the two had tried to cover up the fact that he had not seen them and how Yoongi was a coward for lying.

She was crying and yelling, her face blotchy and red until Yoongi could take it no more and rushed out of the apartment and into the welcoming night.

"Yoongi!" Kyunsoo had called repeatedly, chasing after Yoongi.

She caught hold of his arm trying to intertwine their finger's and he flinched hard, throwing his hand in panic trying to hide away the burns, making Kyunsoo reel back in shock as it almost hit her in the face.

"Y-yoongi." Kyunsoo stuttered as she came to a stop.

He knew there were tears slipping down her face as she stood but he just jerked his chin as if demanding her to back off before backing away as if without a care.

That was the last time he saw her.

*

He watched himself on the mirror of the training room.

His eyes were soulless as he danced, his voice lacking energy as he rapped.

He wasn't exactly surprised when his trainer called him out on it, towards the end of their imperilious training session.

He could see the snakelike smirks of the boys he trained with, guys far better looking and certainly with far more ego than him, through the mirror.

It was a competition between trainees. To see who would debut first, would make it well out there in the world of kpop.

Yoongi had always been the silent one, keeping to himself, finding no friends easier than backstabbing people who would pounce on him the moment he slipped.

Or pounced on him, after making him slip.

He was getting tired of all the shitty drama between the trainees and his personal life wasn't helping either.

As he walked towards the trainer, he caught Jungkook's worried glance toward him and gave him a reassuring smile. Jungkook nodded and left to find some water before the resuming of their practice.

Jungkook had never asked why Yoongi hadn't visited him throughout the entirety of the stay in the hospital. He had never asked anything, he had just looked into Yoongi's eyes with that bunny teeth and smiled like he knew what Yoongi was going through.

He had just resumed his annoying Yoongi like before and that frustrated Yoongi even more.

"Yoongi. Your energy level is dropping considerably." The trainer said and Yoongi nodded, head hanging in shame unable to look in the older man's eyes.

Noona.

This was his dream, and what was he doing? This was his passion yet he was just throwing it away. Yoongi knew this, but there wasn't anymore energy left him in to do anything. Yoongi's fingers clenched and he bit back a wince at the various places of burnt skin that split open at the action.

"-you could easily be the worst performing training here right now." He heard the trainer say and Yoongi nodded again. Yoongi also knew that he couldn't, for the hell of himself dance. He wasn't bron to be a dancer or a performer. He was just good at writing.

Kyunsoo, kyunsoo , kyuunsoo.

"-you'll be fired at this point." The trainer ended his speech and Yoongi's eyes widened alarmingly.

Kyunsoo Noona.

He heard the room quieten and then he heard the snickers ring out. His cheeks flushed and his arms tightened even more, and he could feel the small beads of blood that slipped out, collecting like sweat in his palms.

He quickly slid the hand inside his pocket.

Noona.

He just nodded again.

Even as he felt the edges of his dream flutter past in the sweat air of the training room, even as he felt his world crumbling away like fine sand from between his fingertips.

He was useless.

Without a word, he walked right out of the door with no destination in mind.

He approached the common studio used by the producers of the company and softly walked towards the piano and sat down beside it. The producers were out having lunch, so he was alone.

Or he thought he was.

Yoongi slowly slid over the bloody fingertips over the pristine white keys, smiling mirthlessly as blood smeared across them. He pressed a note, letting the soft note fill his heart, like it used to.

He hadn't touched one of these in a long time.

One by one he pressed each key, as if reminiscing the alphabets of a forgotten language, letting the sounds guide him across the fading memory paths.

Soon his fingers were playing that first melody he had ever composed. It wasn't the best but it was his emotion. It was his heartstrings that thrummed with the weight of each key when he bore it down with his hand, each memory that reverberated in him that made him play harder.

Halfway through, the song went chaotic. Yoongi knew the notes and keys like the back of his hand so it was easy, imagining what each key sounded like and letting out his thoughts spontaneously through them as he plunged on.

He did not notice the way each note brought forth more split skin. He lost himself in the music as he saw Kyunsoo's face over and over in his mind.

The argument.

The funeral.

Seokjin's trembling voice, still in denial over her death.

Kyunsoo's bloodied face.

The morgue.

His trembling knees as he sat kneeling in front of her picture for hours and hours until Seokjin pushed him away.

His tearless face.

Everything flashed by as he played. He did not notice the door open as the producers came back from their lunch. He didn't notice their stunned silences or halting feet. Did not notice as all his teammates gathered too, did not notice the CEO of the company arrive either after someone had called him,

It had been so long since he didn't played so he just let it go. He just played and played, fingers slipping on the blood . His breath came in short gasps as tears finally began to fall.

Tears that he hadn't cried when Kyunsoo had died, or when his father was taken.

The melody reached its crescendo, raging like a stormy sea, its waves chaotic and destructive. He didn't feel the music.

The music felt him.

The crescendo was slowly eased into its former state and he ended the song on a melancholy note as if promising of the darker days to come, with a trembling finger and body wracking sob.

The sudden warm hand on his shoulder startled him as he looked back to Jungkook's tear stained face.

"H-hyun-" Jungkook started but was interrupted by a loud chorus of people clapping. That's when Yoongi noticed the huge amount of people behind him.

Yoonngi's heart fell out of his chest.

They must've all heard. Must've seen the blood staining the piano. His sobs, his weakness.

His body was trembling as he pushed past Jungkook not noticing the awed, admiring and tear sained faces of his audience. Soon he was stooped by the CEO but Yoongi cut him off before the man could even start.

"I'm quitting."

With that, he bowed and left.

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