After that fateful meeting, Yoongi ended up being one of the few constant things in my life.

He would show up whenever the therapy sessions were done and he would simply start talking to me as if he knew me for years. Sometimes he would even walk me home since my aunt was always working and didn't have the time to pick me up.
On those days we always took a long way so that we could spend more time together and occasionally we would get ice cream or other snacks.

When I was finally released from therapy, not because I had gotten any better, I had simply mastered the art of telling people what they wanted to hear, I thought that I would never see Yoongi again.
We had no more excuses to see each other, so it only made sense that he would simply disappear as everybody else in my life did.
At the time, that thought haunted me a lot.

But surprisingly enough, that wasn't the case.

Yoongi would often show up at my house after school and just hang out in there until he heard my aunt coming back. A part of me has always believed that he simply didn't like meeting new people, and he was probably right to think that.
Especially my aunt.
There's no way in hell that she would not have kicked him with a broom for sneaking every day into my room without her knowing.
And she's the people person between the two of us.

But anyway, Yoongi's presence in my life seemed to give me some sanity. 
People at school weren't exactly the nicest most of the time, and I refused to ever set foot in therapy ever again. So Yoongi had basically taken the role of my shrink and my only best friend all for himself.
And for a while that worked pretty perfectly.
That is until I turned 16.

That's when the nightmares started and the voices inside my head became much louder.
I could deal with the voices just fine since Yoongi seemed to know how to help me overcome them. Almost as if no matter how loud they shouted, he knew how to shout much louder and clearer.
To me, those voices were simply something that my insecurity and previous trauma had created to make me feel worse about surviving the car crash while my parents didn't.
The problem was definitely the nightmares.

Every night, they were different but always so terrifying.
Whether it was about my parents, my aunt, people at school, the therapy from Hell, Wheein or even Pennywise the Clown, it made me wake up screaming from just how scared I was. 
Most of the time I tried to cover them up. Pretend that they never existed, so that my aunt could have a good night's sleep and not worry about how ill-minded her niece was. Unfortunately, I wasn't always successful.

One particular night, I had a nightmare that was so frightening that I woke up shouting even louder than usual. I'll not go into the specifics, just that it involved Yoongi and a car.
Before I could calm myself down and go back to sleep, my aunt burst into the room screaming and violently swinging a baseball bat. Mind you, she doesn't even know the rules of baseball or how to properly use it. I'm not even sure why she has a baseball bat, to be honest. She just seems to think that she could beat up an imposter with it if necessary.
When she saw my horrified state, she dropped the bat and ran to hug me. She tried her best to comfort me, to wipe my tears, to take all my cares away, but it wasn't that simple. 

After witnessing the aftermath of some of my nightmares, my aunt decided that I needed to go back to therapy. Not kids' therapy with all the arts and crafts and "the power of friendship and love will fix you up", but actually talk to a psychiatrist that was trained for this kind of situations. That could help me.
Me being me, of course, I refused.
I was tired of being treated like a mental case, plus the expenses that my aunt would have to bear were another burden that I didn't want her to carry. 

And for a few weeks, I had it my way.
Until one night when she was working the night shift and Yoongi had stayed over, the nightmare that had left me without air had repeated itself. 

The car...Yoongi...
It was all happening in front of me again.
And I couldn't do anything to stop it.

Unlike last time, instead of waking up due to the horror and lack of oxygen or because of my aunt's antics, it was Yoongi that pulled me out of my nightmare by shaking me awake.
Much like my aunt had done at the time, once he saw my pitiful state, he tried his best to calm me down.

"They never really stopped did they?" he whispered as his arms remained around my trembling figure.
All I could do in response was shake my head.

I had told Yoongi about the nightmares. All of them except the ones where he was part of. But because I didn't want to worry him anymore, I also told him that they were gradually stopping. Well, that lie had come to bite me in the ass that day.

I never expected Yoongi to offer to stay overnight since he usually runs down the fire escape the minute he hears my aunt at the door, but since she was working the night shift at the restaurant that day he somehow ended up staying. And since we're both incredibly stubborn with who had to sleep on the floor, it was decided that we might as well just share the bed.
Now I'm kind of regretting that decision.
I should have fought harder to sleep on the floor.

We stayed in silence for a bit, me attempting to regain control of my breathing while Yoongi tried to soothe me as best as he could. When I seemed to be calmer, Yoongi sighed.

"I think that for once, you should actually listen to your aunt."

"What?" I whimpered.

"You should really go back to therapy."

"No-"

"I know. I know. You don't want to be a burden or be treated like a lunatic, but honestly, what do you think is more important for your aunt in the end? Her niece's mental stability or money? We both know that your aunt would go as far as robbing a bank with her crappy baseball bat just to make sure you were alright."

"...I...I just don't her to worry even more. I want her to be happy and not have so many things to stress about. Honestly, I would rob a bank for her too."

"And I would break you out of jail if you did that. There's no bigger declaration of friendship than this one." 

"You're an idiot. But I would get you out of jail too."

"That's the sweetest thing you ever said to me. But for real, will you at least think about therapy?"

For the record, I did think about it. Although Yoongi didn't give me much choice at the time. He nagged me for three days straight, until I broke down and asked my aunt to book me the closest psychiatrist that she could find.

I ended up having several consultations with a man named Jo Dongmin, a middle-aged psychiatrist whose office was close enough to my school.
I'll be the first to admit that it was my fault that he couldn't help me as much as he wanted. He had good intentions.
I did like him at least.

Although I didn't tell him as much as I probably should, like the voices and random sleep paralysis visions, I did tell him all about my nightmares and how frightening they were. Especially the ones that involved the people I knew. Particularly the ones that involved Yoongi.

It did help to talk about it. Dr Jo never judged me or made me feel like I should be sent to the closest asylum. But I think he knew more than he let on. At least he seemed to suspect something.

That was proven to me when he gave me my first prescription pills. 
I don't really remember the name, just that they were supposed to help me with my nightmares, my anxiety and any other scary things I see. Besides that, the side effects were the usual migraines, nausea and whatnot.

I did take those pills almost religiously. Every day, one in the morning and another at night.
For a while, they seemed to help. My nightmares at least didn't seem to occur as often and I didn't feel as scared about everything as I used.
My anxiety was another case. That never really went away.

During those 3 months when I took those small pink-looking pills, Yoongi didn't show up once. I didn't understand why since he hung out at my house almost every day after school.
I missed him terribly, but I wasn't going to tell him that. 
That was if I ever saw him again.
If he didn't leave like everybody else.

One day, I forgot to take the pills.
Then on the next day, I forgot again.
At some point, I stopped counting. I guess I felt like I didn't need them anymore. Or maybe it was because it sometimes felt like they seemed to trigger my anxiety. I wasn't really sure what made me stop.

I guess around the sixth day out of the pill, I was lying on my bed surrounded by books and papers trying to do my homework when I heard a loud knock on my window. As startled as I was by that, I was more interested in the impatient-looking face on the other side. I quickly ran to open the window, knocking some of my second-hand school books in the process.

"Geez, I thought that old lady Kang had already got rid of those awful flowers on her window. That shit is long dead and stinks like a corpse. The whole fucking neighbourhood can smell it." Yoongi complained, voice full of disgust as he climbed inside my room.

"Yoongi, what the hell are you doing here?!" I scoffed observing the idiot I called my best friend trying to get his foot out of the window.

"What do you mean what am I doing? I've come to grace you with my presence. OH SHIT" he cursed before falling chest first on the floor. "You know, you should really consider putting a pillow here or something. I'm getting tired of falling into the same spot whenever I try to get in. I think I have a bruise the size of a pancake on my chest by now."

"Yeah well, since you've disappeared for so long, I didn't see the use in that!" I growled as I sat back down on my bed, pretending to be very invested in my homework. 

Meanwhile, Yoongi remained squished on the floor looking like starfish. 

"God, you're way too resentful," he grumbled to my bedroom floor. 

"I never forgive and I never forget."

"Yeah, no shit." he grumpily got up, dusted himself off and made his way to my bed. "Scoot over."

"No."

"Fine. Have it your way then."

With that, he practically sat on top of me, forcing me to make room for him while I loudly curse him and his big butt out.

"Look, it wasn't my fault alright? My mum wanted to visit my grandma and I had no choice in the matter."

"For three months?"

"Like I said, I had no choice. Plus, my brother likes being there and my mum doesn't have the heart to say no to him," he explained. Yoongi never really liked to talk about his family that much so this was probably the best I would get out of him. 

"I see." I let out, unsure of what to say.

"Now, can you stop being cold and disapproving?"

"I'll think about it."

"With you, that's already a big win." he chuckled, laying down on my bed. "Since you're still here and not in a crazy house, I take it that therapy is going okay?"

I really did miss Yoongi.
I stupidly needed him to say all sorts of ridiculous shit so I could feel at least slightly better about life.
Those three months without him had been much harder than I would like to admit. But I didn't tell him that. 
I lay down next to him and told him about all my conversations with Dr Jo and the pills, and how even though I wasn't taking them any longer, I still felt the same as if I never stopped. 
When I finally glanced at Yoongi's face, he seemed to be in deep thought.

"Have you ever heard of placebos?" he then asked looking me straight in the eye.

"What are placebos?"

 "They're bullshit, to put it simply. They don't really have any effect on you, you just believe they do. It's all up in your mind."

"You think Dr Jo gave me placebos?"

"I don't know. It's possible. Or maybe he just gave you pills that have no effect on you. Maybe he wasn't deceiving you, he could have made a mistake."

Two days later, I told Dr Jo that the pills weren't working and that they were only giving me headaches and that when I stopped taking them, I felt better. 
He told me that it was okay and that perhaps it was best for me to stay out of drugs for now. 
But he knew the real reason. Or at least he suspected it.
Now that I think about it, I might have told him enough for him to assume something.

On that day, after assuring me that not taking the pills was not a bad thing, he asked me about Yoongi. 
At the time, I didn't know why he asked me that.
But now I understand.
He had a suspicion of what was really going on with me.