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Taehyung was sitting in the moving car, gazing out of the car window. It was warm enough for him to be cosy without his jacket on, yet he wouldn't be wearing it even if it wasn't. Rock music was quietly blasting from the radio, playing one of the many songs he had heard times and times again over the last year. Looking out the window, observing the endless empty land, which was currently being completely abused by the rain, Taehyung thought to himself:
When did everything go so wrong?
Of course, he knew the answer, but he would rather ignore the ugly truth than face the reality. No matter from what angle he looked at his life, he couldn't help but pity himself. Oh, what had he become and when had his life come to
this
? Again, he could’ve easily answered the question, but as usual, he decided not to. There was no going back anyway. It had already been too long and the memories have already become too painful. There was nothing that he could do anymore, except to keep on going, to keep on lying, to keep on regretting.
The car slowed to a halt and the voice beside him spoke, “We're here, let's go.” Taehyung came back from his thoughts, yet still a little out of it. He locked eyes with the owner of said voice and briefly stared at their dark eyes. “I'll come out in a minute, you go ahead and look if everything's alright with our room.” “Alright,” came a response and soon enough, the car door opened and closed and all Taehyung could see was a retreating back in the heavy rain.
Those eyes, now filled with so much vengeance and anger, were like a stab at Taehyung's already broken heart. There was once a time when they were glowing with nothing but joy, but by now the glint had died down, leaving behind the familiar, yet so completely different, empty eyes. Yoongi was once full of life, but now there wasn't much left of the said man.
Why?
That question too, Taehyung could’ve easily answered, but to protect the last bit of his sane self, he chose not to.
He and Yoongi had known each other for years now. They both lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere, called Newston. They were both seniors in the town's high school and with a population as small as it was in the town, it was inevitable that they would cross paths at some point. Maybe it was the fact that they were both Korean, both from the only two Asian families in town, or maybe it was the fact that they were both dying to get out of that hellhole, but they clicked instantly. With only a couple of months, the two grew very close.
They would visit the shabby diner with pink lights, they would have sappy movie nights, they would drive around the empty fields surrounding the town. Taehyung would be there for Yoongi when his parents fought and Yoongi would be there for Taehyung when his mother would be taken to the hospital over and over again. They were each other's support system and both of them were happier with the other by their side. When things started getting worse at home, Yoongi would spend more time with Taehyung, which, for the two of them, was perfectly fine. Sadly, the world wasn't simple like that and there were always people who would get hurt.
Yoongi had a younger brother named Jungkook. They were close throughout their whole lives and it showed. They did everything together. Through happiness and sadness, they both clung onto each other. But then, Taehyung came along, and Yoongi didn't need Jungkook anymore. Or, at least, that's what Jungkook took it as. Taehyung stole Yoongi from him, made him meaningless in the eyes of the older and Jungkook, like any person who wasn't too stable, filled up with anger. He stayed home every night, alone, listening to his parent’s endless fights, and he blamed Taehyung. For everything. Who else could have turned his perfect life upside down so quickly, so unnoticeably that even his own brother didn't see it coming? That is how cunning Taehyung was and Jungkook took it as a challenge, as a start of a war, and he wasn't going to lose it.
Thinking about it now, it was so obvious what Taehyung was getting himself into.
How could I be so oblivious?
Was a thought that seemed to cross his mind more often than not as the endless days went by. All of this wouldn't have happened if he would have been more attentive, more careful. But he wasn't, and he's paying the price even now.
It was a rainy day, just like almost every other in Newston. Taehyung was just lazing about, planning on staying in bed for the whole day. It was a Sunday after all, his favourite day of the week. While he was in the kitchen, preparing a bowl of cereal to satisfy his roaring stomach, he suddenly got a call from Jungkook. The two could be considered friends at that time, so Taehyung had no objections as to why he shouldn't rush over to his place instantly. When he got to the house, their parents answered the door. “Yoongi’s out in town,” their father stated and when Taehyung made it clear he wasn't there to see Yoongi, but Jungkook, he pointed towards the shed in the backyard and said that Taehyung would find him there. So, that's where Taehyung headed. When he was in front of the shed door he knocked on it twice. A quiet “Come in” came from inside and Taehyung could instantly recognize the voice as Jungkook's. When he stepped in he instantly felt that something was different, something was wrong. The room seemed to have a silent echo of
danger danger danger
. The room was dark, only a small lamp that stood on the table which was placed against the back wall of the shed gave a tiny bit of light. All the curtains had been pulled in front of the windows and all the windows tightly closed. Taehyung closed the door behind him as he stepped inside. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat and said, “Hi, Kook.” “Hello,” came a quiet reply. Jungkook was standing in the middle of the room, looking kind of anxious. There seemed to be something behind his back that he kept fiddling with. The two stood in silence for a couple of seconds, Taehyung eyeing Jungkook and Jungkook looking everywhere except at Taehyung. “Have you been well?” Taehyung tried. Jungkook scoffed at that, for some reason. “How- you-,” he lets out a short laugh, “how have
I
been?
You
, of all people, ask
me
that? Let me laugh.” Taehyung couldn't help but feel confused, “what is it, Kook? Why are you laughing?” Jungkook suddenly flinched, but immediately returned to his former, oddly calm, self. “Is just find it so
goddamn
ironic that
you
, the one who ruined it all has the dignity to ask
me
how I'm doing.” Taehyung became even more confused, “I don't understand Jungkook, what are you talking about?” Jungkook started fidgeting and something glinted behind his back. “Jungkook?” “SHUT UP!” Now it was Taehyung's turn to flinch. Before he could even register that something was happening, there was a gun pointed at Taehyung's face. As on instinct, he raised his hands. “W- What are you doing Jungkook?” The said boy took a step closer to Taehyung, he was shaking all over his body, a mad look on his face and his eyes seemed so distant like they were long gone before his mind was. “I'm ending this, no longer will I have to suffer alone! You took Yoongi from me and now I'm taking him back.” There was a wicked smile on Jungkook's face that gave Taehyung chills and kicked a gut-wrenching feeling to his stomach. “I don't understand Jungkook, I didn't take Yoongi.” “YES, YOU DID!” came a shout from the younger. Taehyung could no longer recognize the friendly, lively boy he had learned to know over the past couple of months, only the sad and angry shadow of who he once was had remained. It terrified him, the way how over such a short period of time a person could be driven mad by their own mind. Taehyung suddenly knew what he had to do. He had to stop Jungkook, he had to live on and he had to get help for the boy. How pathetic would it be if he would lose his life over something as stupid as this, he thought. But maybe it wasn't so stupid after all, at least for Jungkook. That was clear in his eyes when he took another step closer to Taehyung, gun still pointed at the older, eyes still cold and full with hatred. “You took Yoongi, you took my parents, you took my life and in return I now take yours!” “Jungkook, no!” The younger started pulling the trigger and Taehyung took a quick leap towards the boy to grab a hold of the gun a point it elsewhere. What followed was a struggle from both sides to win the gun. Jungkook shoved Taehyung in the stomach, trying to pull his hand, and the gun, free, yet he failed because the other had a steel-like grip on said item. It was all a big blur of events and at some point, Taehyung had started to push the gun from his chest to face the other way, but what happened next was something he could never have predicted. A loud bang echoed in the room, the previous warnings of danger now silenced by its own creator. Jungkook went lip in Taehyung's arms and the realization hit Taehyung a moment later
Accidentally, or maybe intentionally, one of them had pulled the trigger, but the gun had not been pointing at Taehyung, it was Jungkook who took the bullet instead. In horror, Taehyung stood up, which caused the gun to fall to the ground, and watched as Jungkook's lifeless body laid beside it. There was no longer a struggling expression on his face and the anger in his eyes had faded. It was like the possessed part of Jungkook had died and left the body of old Jungkook to lay there, dead on the ground. Taehyung realized then that the friendly and lively boy he knew had been dead for a while now, only the madness in him lived on, but now, murdered by Taehyung's, or perhaps his own hands, neither remained. Taehyung began shaking as the overwhelming feelings all crashed on him at once. Jungkook was dead. He was the murderer. He felt grief and sadness and anger and pain all at once. It all was too much, too overwhelming for Taehyung. His vision started to go black as he swayed a couple of times and then he was laying on the ground, besides dead Jungkook, feeling his consciousness slowly drift away.
Taehyung woke two days later in a hospital, greeted by two officers who asked him what happened. They thought that the two had been attacked by someone and they asked him if he had any clues regarding the investigation. So Taehyung did something that many people in his position would do, he lied. He lied his ass off. Not because he wanted to save himself, but because he didn't want Yoongi to break, even more, he didn't want to see the same madness as Jungkook's to grow in his eyes. He told them that it had been a man in a black coat, wearing a mask and bearing a gun, trying to kill them both. He told them that he and Jungkook had tried to fight him off, but failed. They believed him. And why wouldn't they? There was no reason to suspect Taehyung. Oh, how Taehyung regretted his actions now. How he wished that he would have confessed and told the truth. But instead, now he had been looking for said murdered with Yoongi for almost a year now. Sometimes he felt like they were searching for nothing, sometimes he felt like they were searching for Taehyung's own subconsciousness, his own image of himself that his mind put together of the murderer that he was.
Taehyung heard a knock on the car window and he snapped his head in the direction of the sound in surprise. “Are you coming?” It was Yoongi, standing in the rain. Taehyung smiled sheepishly at him, “Oh, yeah, sorry, I got a little distracted.” Taehyung stepped out of the car and started jogging towards the motel. It wasn't something too pleasant, but after a year of travelling around small towns, you get used to it. Yoongi was hot on Taehyung's heels. When they reached the dry safety of their room Yoongi spoke up, “What were you thinking about so hard?” Taehyung looked at Yoongi's eyes, which had slowly started to remind him of Jungkook's from the day when they met in the shed. “Ah, nothing, just about home.” “Hmph,” was the only reply he got, seeing as Yoongi had already lost interest in the subject. Not clues or threads, not important, had been his mindset for a long time now.
How did this murderer hunt thing work at all, you may ask? Well, it was quite simple. When Yoongi saw that the police couldn't find the killer, he decided to do it on his own. When he asked, Taehyung couldn't say no to coming along with him. It was his fault after all. They couldn't just drive around aimlessly, though, so Taehyung came up with a plan. He secretly spread rumours about a strange person travelling from town to town, who had supposedly set off from Newston after Jungkook's death. Yoongi picked up on the trail and so began their endless “road trip”. Sometimes Taehyung would meet up with people, have them feed fake news and clues to Yoongi, which he happily took. Taehyung had grown tired of this, though. He didn't want to search anymore, didn't want to continue the fruitless hunt, yet he couldn't leave either. He couldn't leave Yoongi alone, just to be slowly consumed by his vengeance, so he stayed. He stayed and he lied and it seemed to never end. But what Taehyung didn't know was that Yoongi was getting tired of the endless hunt too.
It was a few days later when Yoongi approached Taehyung. They had been doing research in the town nearby and now they were taking a day to rest before heading off again. The motel provided them with free breakfast and the rest of the meals too, if they paid, so there really wasn't a reason for the two to go out if they didn't feel like it. Not that there was something that interesting to see in a town like this anyway. All northern towns were mostly alike, one diner, one motel, one school, lots of houses and empty streets. The motel walls managed to keep the chilly October air out of the room, so it was nice and cosy inside. Taehyung would've gladly taken this opportunity to cuddle with the man currently sitting in the opposite side of the room, but taken the circumstances and the mental state of the other, he decided against it. Suddenly, Yoongi rose from his spot at the couch and made his way to sit on the bed, in front of Taehyung. There was a strange look in the eyes of the older. “You know I trust you, right? Do you trust me?” Yoongi asked while eyeing Taehyung weirdly. “Of course, why wouldn't I?” came a reply from Taehyung. “For some reason, I feel like my trust has been violated, hm?” Taehyung felt the colour drain from his face. “I saw you yesterday, purely by accident, talking to someone behind the motel,” Yoongi continued. “It was the guy we went to for information. Two hours before our meeting you go and have a secret chat with the guy. Care to enlighten me of what your reason for that may be?” Taehyung gulped, he saw where this was going. “It's not what it looks like.” Yoongi tilted his head to the left and then to the right. “And what does it look like? I really want to trust you Taehyung, I want to believe you, but you have to give me a valid reason.” Taehyung was scared, angry and sad at the same time. Why did he have to explain anything? It wasn't he who had gone mad, who had insisted on getting revenge. Angry tears, at least that's what Taehyung thought they were, pooled in his eyes. He just wanted to help, nothing more, he didn't think all of this would go so far. His temper started to rise, it felt like the two brother's anger began to boil inside him. “It's none of your business! You don't have a right to ask these kinds of questions!” Taehyung said loudly. Yoongi, too, seemed to grow angrier and angrier by the second, he began to realize what Taehyung's words really meant. Taehyung tried wiping the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. He needed some air,
fresh
air, he needed to breathe. As he stood up and turned towards the door Yoongi grabbed a hold of his wrist. “Where are you going?” Taehyung pulled his hand free from the older's grip and angrily let out, “Away from you!” When he stepped out of the room, he realized it was raining.
Why, oh why, does it always have to be raining?
Taehyung thought to himself.
Aren't my tears enough, does the sky have to cry all of the time too?
Not caring about getting soaked by the rain pouring from the sky, he started to walk towards a random direction. Still angry, he didn't mind wandering in the endless fields, he didn't actually see where he was going, but at that moment he couldn't bring himself to care. When he had wandered for some time he suddenly heard Yoongi's voice behind him, telling him to stop.
Fuck it
. Taehyung thought.
Let's face it then. Let's meet our end. There's no other way this is going to play out so let's fucking face it.
Taehyung stopped dead in his tracks, taking in the last gulp of fresh air and turned around. There stood Yoongi, looking just as soaked as Taehyung felt, a million emotions going over his face at once and, as suspected, a gun in his arm, pointed right at Taehyung. The said man couldn't help but laugh, out of sadness, out of anger or out of madness. “Fucking deja vu, isn't it? Before it was the younger brother and now it's the older, pointing a gun at me.” Taehyung stopped laughing and looked up at the sky. “Ah, why does it have to be me? Why does the world have to be so cruel? What did I ever do wrong? Fine, kill me then. I was supposed to die a year ago, supposed to die from the hands of Jungkook, but he died instead. Do you know how many times I've wished that it would've been me that is dead? That I, who was the bad guy, would've died instead? Huh! Do you?” All the while Yoongi stood completely still, unmoving, so Taehyung decided to take action himself. He moved closer to Yoongi until the gun was touching his chest. Even now the older stayed silent, face unreadable, body stiff. Taehyung took both of his hands and grabbed onto the gun in Yoongi's. Pushing the gun against his chest he started again, “Kill me! End my suffering together with yours, as I am the cause of all of this.” There was more than rain falling down Taehyung's face now. “I loved you so goddamn much, I loved the old Yoongi, loved the caring, selfless man you were. But that man died alongside Jungkook and in one day I lost both of you!” An uncontrollable sob left Taehyung's mouth. “Kill me now and end all of this! At least this way I'll be able to join the man I loved, that is now long gone. I, who took you from Jungkook, will be able to apologize to the boy, no matter if he died by my hands or his own.” Taehyung now fell to his knees, still clutching the gun that Yoongi had a hold on. “Just… kill me…
please
.” He lowered his head, ready for the deadly bullet to take away the last remains of his pathetic life. But it didn't come, only a silence, that was bothered by the falling rain, followed. “Get up,” came a sudden command from Yoongi. When Taehyung stayed on his knees, the older threw the gun from his hands, grabbed a hold of Taehyung's shoulders and pulled the man up. He shook his shoulders like he was trying to get Taehyung to come back to his senses. “Talk to me, Taehyung. Just tell me what really happened, please,” he continued to say. Taehyung raised his head to look Yoongi in the eyes and when he saw that the vengeance and anger had replaced with a thousand different emotions, when he saw that the glint he loved so much was back to his eyes, he decided that fine, he would tell him. With a still shaking voice Taehyung began, “he- Jungkook called me, said he needed my help with something, when I got to your house your father pointed me to the shed and said that I would find Jungkook there. When I got inside something felt off, Jungkook seemed so anxious for some reason. There was something behind his back that he kept hidden from me. He started saying how I stole you from him and how I was the reason that his life was the way it was. He had gone mad Yoongi, completely nuts. One thing led to another and the next moment there was a g-gun pointed at my face and when I tried to stop him the gun had ended up pointing in his direction and one of us accidentally pulled the tr-trigger. He died instantly and I fainted.” Taehyung had started to sob again while speaking. Yoongi took a hold of both sides of Taehyung's face and wiped some tears away from the corners of the younger's eyes. “Okay. That- that's okay. We'll figure it out.” Taehyung looked at Yoongi's eyes with some much hope. “Really?” Yoongi smiled gently at Taehyung, “Yeah, but for now, let's get home.” Yoongi grabbed one of Taehyung's hands in his and started walking in some direction.
The motel, probably
, thought Taehyung. He, too, couldn't keep a small smile off his face. Maybe for once, everything wouldn't go wrong. Maybe this time the world was on his side.