Work Text:
Can you pinpoint the exact moment you fucked up your entire life?
The thumping of his blood nearly deafened Jeongguk as he looked around at the people around himself, bleak eyes watering and bloodshot with red lines like thunderbolts decorating his otherwise milky white eyeballs as they darted around the room to make sure of something he’d already forgotten about before he’d finished documenting everyone in the room.
No one was really paying attention to him, everyone being too busy exploring their own vast minds or talking to whoever sat next to them - or in some cases in their laps - to mind anyone else. The entire room was full of smoke, most definitely caused by all the stoners who couldn’t be fucked going outside; the cloudy gas covering the white ceiling like a blanket over the room and its occupants. There were still some people smoking, most noticeably the four guys who were sat in the middle of the room, all of them on the floor as they passed around two hand-rolled joints in between them, laughing loudly over some inside joke Jeongguk hadn’t picked up on. All of them were wearing matching Christmas jumpers and black pants, black with a clashing white deer with a shining red nose on the front and a knitted white Santa Claus on their back, definitely something they’d decided on to wear together to show off their clique at the party even though it was still multiple months left until Christmas, it being mid-August after all.
He spotted Hoseok and Yoongi on the sofa across the room, the former seemingly close to passing out as he rested his head on the latters shoulder, eyes closed to the world around him as the weed he’d been smoking the last couple of hours (and knowing Hoseok, all the pills he’d popped) finally seemed to have succeeded in sedating him completely, the haze bringing his hyperactive personality down to earth.
Yoongi was fully awake though, the same glimmer that Jeongguk assumed could be reflected in his own in his eyes as he with used movements fixed up yet another line of what Jeongguk assumed to be cocaine on his iPhone screen. He already had a 10 000 won bill rolled up tight and waiting in between his pinky and ring finger of the same hand that held the credit card that he was using to shape the white powder into a fine, thin line. Jeongguk watched the elder until he finally decided the line ready, raising his credit card to his lips to quickly lick off the cocaine sticking to its edges before dropping the card onto his lap, the bill being raised to his nostril just as he raised his phone with the line on it to his face; and without much further ado the powder was sucked into his system. Yoongi’s eyes closed up for a couple of seconds, the rush of the drug without a doubt hitting him almost directly after he finished sucking it in, luling his senses into a sense of power that was going to last him the better part of the next thirty minutes before it would be time for a refill, given that he didn’t head back home before then.
Tearing his eyes away from Yoongi before the elder opened his eyes, Jeongguk found himself locating his own phone from his back pocket, the screen turning on automatically to show him that it was just after 4 a.m. before he dropped it onto his own lap, explaining silently the reason that the party had died out so much compared to how it had been what to him seemed as just minutes ago ( but was most likely more than an hour ago ).
Well, losing track of time wasn’t exactly uncommon when you were on drugs after all, Jeongguk thought as he debated doing as Yoongi and taking another line of his own cocaine too; it had probably been more than forty minutes since his last one, based on his tired head and aching body, and if he was to keep his buzz going until it was time to go home he’d better get another line ready now before the after-effects of the coke rush hit him, something that was destined to be pure hell after all the grams he’d snorted both tonight and yesterday.
He sighed, putting his phone down on the low sofa table in front of him as he fished the ziplock bag out of his front pocket with two fingers, holding it up to the light coming down from the bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling as he gave the bag a little shake so that he could see how much was left in it - two grams roughly, give and take - before opening it up over his phone, dabbing out what would soon become a hefty line onto the clear surface before closing it, putting the bag back in his jean pocket at the same time as he fished up his worn leather wallet up from his back pocket, quickly opening it up to get out his bank card and a crisp 50 000 won bill before putting it next to his phone on the table.
It didn’t take him more than 30 seconds to finish fixing up the line and it took mere seconds for his used fingers to roll up the bill before he leaned down to the table, snorting the line in one go before bouncing back towards the back of the sofa he was sat in, eyes closed as the cocaine dripped down his throat and entered his system with a rush of euphoria. In that moment, just as the drug hit him, Jeongguk truly felt happy, and the knowledge of knowing he’d be on top of the world for another twenty minutes or so was made out of a bliss he rarely felt otherwise in his life.
When drugs were the only thing keeping you somewhat sane and able to go on with your life, you sure learned how to respect that - and keep high.
-
How did it all turn out this way?
In Jeongguk’s case, it was always Taehyung. It had always been Taehyung.
-
They’d gotten along since the first day they ever met each other, when Jeongguk was five and Taehyung was seven years old and his family moved into the penthouse apartment right next to Jeongguk’s. They’d met in the corridor, and Jeongguk still remembered how he’d first seen Taehyung running back and forths in the corridor of the apartment building as they moved in, with that big grin on his face that could rival the sun. When his parents made him go over to the Kim’s to introduce himself and his family to their new neighbours, Taehyung had hugged him and called out that they were best friends before even saying hello, and Jeongguk hadn’t found it in his small heart to say no.
At ten and twelve, they were inseparable. Jeongguk had already skipped a year of school, and when he got to know he was going to be raised yet another level before the next start of term he’d waited outside of school for an hour after his own classes ended to wait for Taehyung, not letting the elder say a word before nearly yelling out that they were going to be classmates the next school year, hugging him with all the force he could bring up out of his little body. They ended up celebrating it with both of their families who’d now became good friends and business partners alike, out on a fine restaurant in Gangnam-gu before the two children spent the remainder of the evening over at Jeongguk’s place, playing video games until it was well past time for them to go to bed.
They were fourteen and sixteen, the two of them classmates and neighbours as they attended one of Seoul’s most esteemed high schools, located in the heart of Gangnam-gu. Jeongguk was the pride of his upper class family, having skipped not one but two grades during elementary because of his brains and slick social skills while still remaining top of the class, meanwhile Taehyung was the youngest son of a business tycoon who only ever came second to Jeongguk in school, and destined to become CEO of one of his parents sub-businesses. Jeongguk himself was supposed to take over his parents business, so there wasn’t much difference between them. Both of them already had their lives planned out before they were even born - attend top schools, get into top universities, study business and economics for their majors, get into their parents companies, marry a nice woman and get a son or two to further their lineage; that’s just how it was supposed to go.
But things rarely end up as they’re supposed to do, do they?
Jeongguk came out to Taehyung when he was sixteen. He came out to his parents at seventeen. And as soon as his parents got to know he was gay, he lost not only his future, but also his family.
-
Both Jeongguk and Taehyung enrolled into Seoul National University after finishing high school. Taehyung was, just as planned by his family, a double major in business and economy, meanwhile Jeongguk - now free from his family’s original plans - started his studies in psychology as he’d dreamt of as a child but never envisioned he’d ever be able to do.
Taehyung’s parents were the ones who paid for their shared apartment, a spacy three roomer just off campus, the two of them having been way more accepting of Jeongguk and his sexuality than his own family had been and whom had taken to act as if Jeongguk was their son rather than their son’s best friend the last year. Even if Jeongguk had been allowed to live at home, just as he still had access to the money his mother transferred to his bank account the first day of each month, he had completely lost all connection to his family abruptly and Taehyung’s parents had taken it upon themselves to fill that empty space.
They took their first few months of university by storm, both of them used to studying for hours each day already as they took on their new load of essays and questionnaires together, spending the majority of their time either in the university library or on their living room floor, always together even though they studied completely different subjects. Their first load of midterms went well, both of them scoring near-perfect marks on all their tests and hence proceeding to their second semester with good conscience as they opened up their emails with their results as they sat next to each other on their kitchen table, high-fiving over their laptops as they cheered on each other before celebrating with overpriced soju and drunken regrets.
They partied too, just like whichever normal university student would. With both of them, and especially Taehyung, being social butterflies it wasn’t hard to either, and they were soon invited out each weekend, be it to house parties or club nights or karaoke hang-outs, and they embraced it with open arms. They went from never having attended a proper party in their life to going out every weekend, but at least they made sure not to go overboard and made it a spoken rule to never party on weekdays so that they’d continue to put their studies first. They both made a lot of new friends, but most importantly they met Jimin, a social science major the same age as Taehyung that officially became a best friend of theirs just a few weeks into the start of their first year at university.
Their group of three garnered a reputation on campus which made them quite well known, but it was probably impossible for them to go unnoticed when they probably knew a third of campus if you combined all of their friends and acquaintances. At least it wasn’t based on anything bad or scandalous at least, so they generally just ignored the fact that people were talking about them and went on with their lives as usual.
-
Jeongguk was twenty when he realised he was in love with Taehyung, not even a month after they started their junior year at Seoul National University. The realisation came to him with a storm of anxiety and second thoughts as he gazed upon himself in the bathroom mirror in a frat house bathroom. The party was just reaching its peak outside the locked door that separated him from the rest of the attendees, the speakers in the living room blasting the music so that it could be heard throughout the entire building and down half the street too.
He stared himself down in the mirror as his mind went amok. He was in one of his usual party outfits, a black t-shirt that read Armani in white text over his chest matched with his usual dark, ripped skinny jeans. His cardigan, an oversized knitted spectacle that nearly reached Jeongguk’s knees, was lying discarded on the bathroom floor where he’d initially thrown it after he’d walked into the room; while it was too cold to go without it outside, the house with all the people inside had been heated up until it was simply unbearable to wear it anymore, and Jeongguk had walked around with it in his hand for the last hour or two. He’d thought about discarding it with Taehyung for a while, the elder having been sat by the kitchen table for the better part of the night as he’d managed to get into some intense conversation regarding something, but decided against it upon remembering how forgetful the elder was.
Shit, Taehyung. He’d nearly managed to force him out of his mind while he’d been nitpicking on his choice of outfit, but now all the thoughts and his new revelation came crashing straight back down on him.
‘Fuck, I love Taehyung’ once again echoed in his head, bouncing against his cranium like an early 2000’s Windows screensaver. It wasn’t like Jeongguk was surprised, he really wasn’t; he’d had it coming for him all this time. It was probably more surprising that he hadn’t realised it until now, because the more he thought about it the more convinced he was that he’d loved him for years already.
How could he not? Taehyung was perfect, inside and out, with his tanned skin and loud laughter, his lanky body and witty head, his peculiar way of walking while swaying side to side and the way he could focus on something for hours if he found it interesting enough. He was all Jeongguk had ever wanted, and he had to fight back tears from escaping his eyes as he thought about all the adorable things his elder had said, done and expressed.
Fuck, Jeongguk was a lost cause for Taehyung. He was so fucking in love with him that it hurt to think about it, his stomach knotting when he remembered his smile and his throat constricting when he thought about their last conversation. It was as if flowers were blooming in the emptiness of his lungs, and he didn’t know if they were good or bad yet, because he had no fucking idea if he had a chance with him; Taehyung wasn’t gay but he sure as hell wasn’t straight either, but he couldn’t exactly go and ask ‘hey, Tae, wanna date me? ’ or something along those lines, no way in hell would he have the guts to ask him out.
So that just left waiting. He’d have to wait and see how things went, see if Taehyung would show any signs of liking Jeongguk back or if he’d show the opposite, see if he had the slightest kernel of a chance with Taehyung or if he’d have to struggle and try get over it all - something that was destined to be pure hell after loving him for so long.
Walking back out into the party wasn’t wasn’t an easy task, especially not as he’d been planning to head to the kitchen to get another drink and see if Taehyung was still by the kitchen table, and it took for someone to knock on the bathroom door and a voice shouting ‘ hurry the fuck up dude ’ through it for Jeongguk to finally pull himself together, quickly picking his cardigan up from the floor before he unlocked the door and staking out with a fake smile on his lips and a quick ‘ sorry ’ to the guy who’d been waiting for him to get out.
He almost pussied out of his original plan to go to the kitchen, but after a couple of seconds of mental preparation while heading down the stairs and a reminder to himself to act fucking natural he’d finally manned up and proceeded to the kitchen. He attempted to get there as quickly as possible but it turned out to be impossible to just get there straight away, not when Jeongguk knew half the people at the party and got chatted up by every third person as he tried to make his way past the living room and the short hallway leading up to the kitchen, but for once he was happy to be away for Taehyung even if it was for just a little longer.
When he finally reached the kitchen, having finally broken away from a short conversation with Jeungmoon about their latest psychology essay, he found Taehyung sitting in the exact same spot as he’d left him in last, the elders eyes glinting as he was heavily indulged in the conversation that was currently being hold around the table. Jeongguk recognised the other three that was sat with him as Eunji, Minseok, and Ilhoon, all of them good friends of both his and Taehyung’s. Taehyung was sat so that he’d see everyone in the room, the chair on the end of the table, and Jeongguk knew it wouldn’t be long until the elder would let his eyes wander through the room - no matter how into the current conversation he was - and hence it wouldn’t be long until he noticed Jeongguk, but even then Jeongguk opted to make a beeline to the kitchen counter that was filled with various bottles of alcohol rather than to Taehyung. He quickly picked out a bottle of Sierra tequila and a new clear plastic cup, pouring the liquor into the glass until nearly a third of the glass had been filled up and he switched the tequila to pineapple juice, pouring the juice up until the glass was filled.
He was going to need being drunk if he was to get through the night, after all.
-
Jeongguk officially started smoking two months into his junior year at university. He’d first taken a toke off a cigarette on a party the year before, coughing his lungs up as soon as the smoke reached them while silently wondering why anyone would willingly inhale the toxin. But as it turned out he’d ended up taking another toke a couple of parties later, this time without a near-death experience, and it became a habit for him to take a couple of drags of a friends cigarette whenever he went out. After a while that turned into bumming a cigarette of someone, and that was when Jeongguk discovered just how relaxing and nice it was to smoke; just with one cigarette it was as if all his troubles went away, his stress over studies disapparating and all the bad thoughts shrinking away.
It was a clear skied day in the beginning of November when he bought his first pack, barely a cloud in sight to watch how Jeongguk went into the corner shop just around the corner of his and Taehyung’s apartment to buy himself a pack of Marlboro reds and a bright orange lighter. He lit the first cigarette as soon as he stepped outside of the store, with now used movements having put it in between his index and middle finger before lighting it up and taking his first drag.
He was only halfway through it when he arrived in front of the entrance to his and Taehyung’s building’s entrance, and he stalled by the entrance to finish it all while he felt his mind come to a rest as of the tobacco taking effect. He was close to lighting up a second one after he finished it but changed his mind, his body shivering because of the autumn cold no matter that he was wearing his bomber jacket, and after tossing it onto the street he promptly went back up to Taehyung and their apartment.
Taehyung didn’t approve of his new habit, but he was understanding enough. He’d tried it before too and he was fully aware of the few perks it came with, but he’d never been a fan of the smell before and even after Jeongguk had smoked for a couple of weeks he still made faces of disgust whenever Jeongguk smelt of smoke.
Jeongguk took comfort in the fact that he at least didn’t smoke too much; he smoked little over a pack a week, just a couple of cigarettes a day to take the edge off, most often on the cramped balcony of his and Taehyung’s shared apartment and on his way to class in the mornings, and naturally outside whatever party or club they went to on the weekend. He found himself lots of new friends while smoking on out-nights, and one of those were Hoseok - an older medicine doctorate who talked more than anyone Jeongguk had ever met and smoked more than a chimney. He and Hoseok clicked right away, and it wasn’t long until it became a habit for the two to find the other before they went out to smoke whenever they went to the same party.
Taehyung hoped that Jeongguk’s new habit would just be a phase, but a couple of months in he grudgingly accepted that smoking was there to stay. And no matter how much Jeongguk loved Taehyung, it wasn’t something he was about to let go of.
-
It took a few months before Jeongguk and Taehyung officially became a couple. How Taehyung turned out to love Jeongguk was way beyond his comprehension. Maybe miracles really did exist.
After Jeongguk realised how much of a lost case he was for Taehyung, he’d ended up telling Jimin, their other mutual best friend, about it in the middle of a study session at the library, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them. And Jimin, being the good friend he always claimed to be, had instantly vowed he’d make sure they ended up together.
No amount of stuttered words and panicked expressions could make Jimin change his mind on the matter, the elder shrugging his pleas off with practised ease after years of knowing Jeongguk and the youngers tendency not to act out on his own wants and needs. The elder always claimed to be looking out for him, and Jeongguk had long since realised that Jimin acted kind of like what he assumed a guardian angel would.
It didn’t even take a full month for him to work his magic. Exactly what he did was lost to Jeongguk, but somehow he’d managed to convince Taehyung to ask him out on a cinema date (like, not as a friend. The elder had explicitly said ‘not like, as friends, but like a date’ to him as he asked, the blush blossoming on his cheeks like roses as Jeongguk stared back at him in shock before agreeing with a nervous smile.). Even to this day, he had zero clues on how Jimin had managed to make Taehyung ask him out, but after seeing how both his elders adamantly refused to tell him anything regarding that one month (and their first date), Jeongguk had simply accepted it and moved on.
It didn’t even take two months since their first date before they were officially a couple, seemingly shaking the university’s foundation as two of the most sought-out men became taken simultaneously and making Taehyung’s parents so happy that they cried over the phone when they told them about it during their habitual weekly call home.
Life didn’t change much for either of them, even after they started dating. Their everyday life was still the same, going to class, hanging out with Jimin, going to parties and studying, but their love could be found in the small details. Such as how they now kissed each other goodbye each morning and could always be found holding hands whenever they went out together, how Jeongguk hadn’t slept in his own bed for weeks and all the small glances and looks they gave each other every so often.
They’d already been inseparable, going way back to their childhood years, but now they were just; more than that. It was like they were one of the same rather than two individuals with two different lives, and neither of them complained about it. Because they’d found each other, and they loved each other.
-
Jeongguk was twenty years old when Taehyung died, just a month before his twenty-first birthday.
It was a car crash, just as miserable as any other one, and Jeongguk saw it happen. One second Taehyung was standing next to him, waiting for the green light to turn red and let them cross, and the other the light was yellow and Taehyung took his last three steps, reaching not even half-way past the street before the red car hit him. It hadn’t even been speeding - the male driver had simply assumed it’d have time to get over the stop before it turned red in his hurry home to the wife that was waiting for him to return before starting dinner.
Taehyung died in the ambulance on his way to the hospital. Jeongguk was still holding his hand, having been the first one to rush up to him after he got run over and the last one to talk to him before he completely lost himself as they loaded him into the ambulance truck.
Jeongguk found peace in knowing that Taehyung had at least died with someone he loved by his side. He’d still been awake when it arrived, and even if he was in so much pain he’d looked up at Jeongguk with his eyes sparkling like the stars before he told him he loved him, tears streaming down both their cheeks mimicking small streams of nature as the younger replied the same thing back to him, making the elders lips turn into a small smile even though the hurt before he passed out.
He was officially declared dead just two minutes later.
Taehyung’s parents became completely devastated as soon as Jeongguk told them, calling just as they’d arrived at the hospital and the doctors called out Taehyung as dead. He was told his own parents were just as ruined, but he never got to hear a word from them directly after being condemned by them years ago, and neither did his parents call him even a single time during his period of mourning the month that followed Taehyung’s death.
-
The song that was supposed to play at his and Taehyung’s wedding was played at Taehyung’s funeral instead.
It was the first time he saw his parents in two years time, both of them dressed in sleek black as they accompanied their son’s boyfriends’ parents around the ceremony. Jeongguk didn’t speak a single word to any of them, and they didn’t make any attempts to strike up a conversation with him either. Instead he spoke to Taehyung’s parents, the ones who’d taken him in as their own, and they wept together in sorrow during the ceremony. His late boyfriends parents were sure to make it clear to him that they saw him as their son too, and that they’d be there for him whenever he needed them, no matter what happened.
He was sitting on the first row, just next to Taehyung’s parents. The rest of the guests were spread out behind the three of them, with Taehyung’s grandparents and his cousins and also Jimin on the second row, a couple of aunts and uncles on the third row, and Jeongguk’s own parents and some of Taehyung’s other friends on the fourth and fifth. When the priest who was in charge for the burial started his sermon on love, life and death, it didn’t even take more than two words before his mind finally broke down and he began to silently cry as he wallowed in the pain of his memories.
Jeongguk and Taehyung's mother held hands with each other throughout the entire ceremony as if they were the only things holding each other up as one bid farewell to a son, and another a lover.
-
Jeongguk was twenty-one when he started using drugs.
It started with just two tokes of a joint, the marijuana mingling with the tobacco in his lungs as he coughed his organs up on a downtown street of Seoul with two of his fellow classmates. They’d somehow managed to find a dealer even with the harsh drug sentences in South Korea, and even though Taehyung couldn’t remember their name to save his soul he thanked them dearly for it. Those two drags ended up changing his life completely, something he realised as soon as the drug kicked in and he found himself standing on top of the clouds above, looking down at himself and his companions as he floated away from reality and into a better world.
He was still in the middle of his high as he asked for the plug’s number, saving it under an inconspicuous name in his phone as if it was no more than a new friend he’d met on a night out before he parted with his friends to head back home to his apartment where he ended up spending the whole night laughing to himself as he watched vine compilations and binged on pasta.
It was always too quiet to be home nowadays when there was no Taehyung there, nobody greeting Jeongguk when he came home, nobody talking softly while they he studied, nobody murmuring in his sleep as he tried to fall asleep. But when Jeongguk was still affected by the drugs it seemed like nothing - sure, there was no one else there to keep him company, but he didn’t miss having anyone there.
And that was probably the one thing that made him fall for it so hard.
Not even a week had gone by before he found himself calling the number his classmate had given out to him, and soon he found himself holding onto his very own five grams of weed. It took him a couple of days to figure out just how much he was supposed to use as he mixed it out with tobacco, smoking his shitty beginner-class joints on the balcony as soon as he’d gotten out of class and back home in the afternoon before he started up the days studies and homework, finding it much easier to focus when he wasn’t expecting to see his better half sitting across the table at any given moment.
With the drugs the memories of Taehyung seemed to fade out into nothingness, finally letting Jeongguk go on with his everyday life as a normal person rather than someone stuck holding hands with the past. And he was definitely all for it, whatever level it may be.
-
When the weed stopped having the same effect as it once had, Jeongguk turned over to the amphetamine his usual dealer had introduced him to on a Friday night out with the boys that took place just some five months after he initially started smoking dope. It was a brief addiction though, both his dealer and himself switching over to cocaine not even a month later, once again on a night out, and it was probably for the better that he didn’t stay on it; he’d seen pictures of addicts, and hell, speed was one hell of an ugly drug.
He’d became quite good friends with his dealer too, the elder man and university drop-out named Namjoon having gotten close to him soon after he’d became a regular buyer of whatever the elder had. With him came tons of new people and new parties, both from and off campus, and Jeongguk gladly accepted them as his new friends as he dropped most of his old ones and ignored the rest.
His life became split into three parts at that point; the seventeen years he’d spent before coming out to his parents, the four years he’d spent with Taehyung as they finished up high school and started university, and his life after Taehyung’s passing, alone and suffering. The former two were also the parts he endlessly attempted to forget, not a day passing by without him doing his absolute best to repress the memories of his younger selves happier everyday life.
Namjoon showed him a new world, a better world, where Jeongguk could finally feel at ease again after he’d lost the person he’d considered his own personification of home to a stranger just months ago. Namjoon showed him a world where all was good, and even if it wasn’t perfect you’d never be able to bring yourself to care enough about it after you truly got into your high.
Namjoon showed him that there was a world without Taehyung. And even if it wasn’t one he could spend all his time in, even if it was a temporary one based on substance abuse mixed with regret, it was something, and that something was enough to keep Jeongguk alive.
For now.
-
Jeongguk hadn’t spoken to Jimin since he started doing drugs on a regular basis. He’d always felt too ashamed to show himself to the elder after he got into the game, feeling as if he would be able to see right through his shell of skin and bones until he’d be able to watch how the drugs and alcohol were the only thing running Jeongguk’s body with clarity. It wasn’t uncalled for, in Jeongguk’s defence; Jimin had always had a scarily good intuition to the stage that he just seemed to know things without anyone telling him about it before.
Jimin hadn’t let him go easily, but thankfully he’d taken the hint a few weeks after Jeongguk had first started to act like the man didn’t exist anymore. It had been hard on Jeongguk to ignore all the messages and flee each time he came across the elder in public, but it was something that needed to be done for him to be able to go on with his life.
He had new friends now, after all. He’d found another clique of misfits to hang out with. There was Namjoon, his reliable dealer and probably the closest to a best friend Jeongguk had nowadays. The elder hadn’t taken long to become a constant in the youngers life, with his long rants about conspiracy theories that were bound to come as soon he’d smoked a joint and with his habit of making sure Jeongguk was still attending his classes and sending in his work no matter what. And then there was Yoongi, his senior of four years that easily smoked more cigarettes an hour than pills Jeongguk popped a day and never seemed to leave his apartment while the sun was still up (well, that was if he’d gotten home before sunrise, at least). And then there was Hoseok, someone Jeongguk had already known since earlier as they’d went to the same parties and smoked together, Yoongi’s talkative boyfriend that just like Jeongguk attended SNU, a medicine postdoc student who refused to use any drugs apart from weed and whatever benzodiazepine he could come across. While he and Hoseok had already known each other it had been completely different to how it was between them now, and Hoseok was sensitive enough to never bring Taehyung up to speech even though he knew all about his past relationship and about Taehyung’s death. Those were the important friends he had at least, the constants rather than just fleeting people he partied and studied with.
The four of them met up on a regular basis, not only for parties and clubs but for completely normal things like binge watching Netflix shows at Jeongguk’s place, going out to karaoke, and in his and Hoseok’s case, study sessions at the library. It was just like any other friends he’d had before he started using drugs, but with these people he didn’t have to pretend to be normal and sober like he had to do with everyone he’d known before Taehyung died. And it was so much easier that way.
-
Jeongguk celebrated his twenty-second birthday with five bottles of soju, four grams of cocaine, and sixty-four round, green pills of Oxycontin. It was the second birthday he’d spent alone, and it would be his last. It wasn’t something he’d just now decided upon, but rather something he’d spent the better part of the last couple of months planning with himself.
He had never thought about killing himself before Taehyung died, but when the thoughts started coming it had felt just right. A life without Taehyung had never been one he had much interest in to begin with, too bleak and bland for his liking. He missed coming home after class to see the literal sun dancing around in the kitchen, he missed going out with company of someone so much better than himself on Friday nights and dancing until their feet ached, he missed knowing he was loved more than he’d ever deserved by someone that he could never ever replace.
He’d already bid farewell from the few friends he still had in his life nowadays; he hadn’t known the majority of them for more than a couple of months anyhow, only Jimin and Hoseok having been considered close friends of his for more than a year and the rest of them having joined in during the months that had passed since he first started doing drugs, none of them having even known of him since way after Taehyung’s death last August. It had been a simple ordeal, Jeongguk inviting them all out to karaoke to ‘ celebrate his birthday ’ after he’d told them he’d be busy with other things on the actual date. He’d paid for the whole thing, from the room to the drinks and drugs, and after bidding his last farewell to them he’d went back home to the empty apartment and cried for half an hour straight.
Sitting down onto his living room sofa with a sigh, Jeongguk put down his current bottle of soju onto the blackened wooden table in front of him at the same time as he turned the TV on with the remote he’d held with his other hand, switching between channels before finally settling on some random drama he’d never heard of before and dropping the remote next to him.
He already had a mirror laid out on the table since hours earlier, the clear ziplock bag laying open on the edge of it next to a small mountain of the white powder he’d already poured out of it as soon as he’d gotten home from Namjoon’s.
He quickly set to work, pulling his credit card out of his wallet that was laid next to the mirror to fix up a hefty line out in front of him. It was probably close to half a gram, but Jeongguk just couldn’t bring himself to care about how much he was using up at once at this stage - he was bound to die today after all, so why would he care about anything anymore?
Rolling up a 10 000 bill with used movements and snorting the line didn’t take long, and Jeongguk let his head dip back so that the drug would properly drop into his throat and enter his system properly for a while before he once again let his eyes wander to the TV as the cocaine hit him, making his eyes nearly roll around into his skull as his head hit the back seat of the sofa.
The cocaine rushing through him made him feel alive for once, and he relished in the feeling of it as he embraced the sensation of the room spinning and his body being filled with power through his closed eyes, taking comfort in the familiar rush as he let himself go completely to the drug.
He didn’t open his eyes back up until a couple of minutes later, having gotten lost in his high before he remembered he still had a soju bottle in front of him on the table that he had yet to finish, and it was with quick movements that reached forward to grasp hold of the bottle and lift it up to his lips, completely forgoing the need of a glass to drink out of as he downed nearly a third of what remained in the bottle at once, letting out a few silent coughs as he put the glass bottle back onto the table and prepared himself to stand up; it was time to take another cigarette, and Jeongguk refused to smoke inside of his own home even now.
It didn’t take long for him to fetch his jacket from the hallway and head out to the balcony, the chilly September wind hitting against his frame like a punch as he lit his cigarette and let his eyes wander out over the city. Their apartment was situated on the twenty-seventh floor out of thirty, and that gave him quite the view over the bustling Seoul streets in the middle of Gwanak-gu combined with a clear view out over the campus area to his left. They He lived just a couple of minutes walk away from the main campus after all, and from the balcony he could easily point out the humanities building he had most of his classes in, together with the education and pharmacy buildings that it stood between.
It had been four years since he’d first started attending Seoul National University, four years that had completely changed his life both for the better and the worst. It had been a wild ride, to say the least, but Jeongguk couldn’t imagine a life without those four agonising years, with or without Taehyung by his side as he’d battled obstacle after obstacle until finally getting to the point which he were now standing by. Sure, the times of him being one of the top psychology students were long since passed, sure, the times of him having a wide friend circle at campus were over, sure, he was no longer known as Taehyung’s boyfriend, but all of what he’d gone through had made him into who he was today.
And who was Jeon Jeongguk today? An insecure, selfish and lonely fucker, as far as he himself was concerned, and no one could convince him otherwise anymore.
Because that was exactly what he’d became. He, who’d once been a friendly, studious and kind person, had turned into an absolute piece of trash after the death of his best friend and boyfriend, and there was no way around it.
He never voiced his thoughts of himself out loud though - it was so much easier to keep up the act of bratty rich kid, to keep pretending as if he wasn’t dying a little more on the inside for each passing day and to seem like he was just having a fun time as he went on with his life as he’d always done before.
In reality, Taehyung’s death had fucking shattered Jeongguk to the core, crushing him to the point of no return as his older self withered away only to leave a hollow image of a human being. Because Jeongguk had always imagined his future being next to Taehyung, and once the elder vanished from those images so did all of his future plans and prospects. He’d never once seen a future without Taehyung before, but the image he now held within his mind was one that could make others cry out of despair and one that was nearly driving him insane.
Even with all the drugs he did nowadays, he could never fully forget about Taehyung. The elder plagued his mind like a poltergeist that wouldn’t ever let go of him, with passing thoughts and random memories of them, together. It didn’t matter how many pills Jeongguk popped or how many lines he’d snort, he was never completely safe from those random bursts of remembrance when it came to Taehyung, and it was killing him slowly. His friends, his new friends , had quickly learnt not to bother Jeongguk whenever his eyes glazed over and he lost contact with the work for a couple of seconds or minutes, but they’d never once questioned just what the young male was thinking about during those times, and they probably knew that even if they did he wouldn’t answer them honestly. But it was always Taehyung, it had always been Taehyung, and it would always be Taehyung.
Jeongguk finally tore his eyes away from campus as he shook his head in a futile attempt to clear his mind, letting his fingers touch his lips faintly as he took another drag of his nearly-finished cigarette before he flicked it with used movements, the ash falling from it’s burning tip onto the balconies wooden flooring before Jeongguk took yet another toke off it and let his arm drop down to his side.
Forcing himself to think of the drugs waiting for him inside rather than Taehyung, he let out a silent sigh just before his lips turned into a crude smile; he’d just remembered he still had three 1.5L bottles of overpriced soju left in the fridge, which would be more than enough to make him drunk now as he’d nearly already finished off his first bottle, the remains of it still standing in the middle of his living room in the middle between the cocaine and the pill bottle of benzos.
Taking a last toke of his cigarette before throwing it over the railing, Jeongguk took another couple of breaths to calm himself down before going back inside, shrugging off his jacket and throwing it onto the sofa before picking up the nearly empty bottle of soju from the table and chugging the remaining liquid in one go. He brought the bottle with him to the kitchen, putting it down on the counter next to the fridge before he opened it up and got out his second bottle, opening it up before taking another couple of sips on his way back to the living room where he once again let himself plunk down onto the sofa. Within another minute he’d finished fixing up and snorting another line of cocaine, again a thicker and longer line than he’d usually do while he was out partying, and he swore to himself as the powder dripped down his throat with a faint taste of ethanol and sin.
Jeongguk was going to die soon.
He hadn’t let himself think too much into it the last couple of days, but as he let himself sink down into the sofa cushions he finally let his thoughts regarding it surface.
He’d completely accepted it, of course; it had been hard to wrap his head around in the beginning, when he first started to have any sort of suicidal thoughts, but as time passed by and he thought more into it he’d found himself welcoming the idea rather than pushing it away. It had been just seven months since Taehyung passed away that he finally decided that he was going to go through with it, and now, thirteen months later, he’d held onto his initial plan and was finally about to do it.
Jeongguk didn’t believe in any sort of afterlife. He wasn’t a Christian, not religious at all really, and he’d grown up with the idea that after you died it was simply over for you, that you’d just fade into nothingness and that there would be nothing else to it. Maybe he wouldn’t have planned to kill himself if he’d had any sort of faith, but that was just another ‘ what if ’ to add to the pile as no one would ever know how it would have turned out if he was. For now, Jeongguk simply believed he’d finally be put to rest, put to nothingness, when he killed himself; and that was one of few things he longed for with all of his soul.
The clock on the wall that hung just over the TV showed that it was just after 8 p.m. when Jeongguk checked it for the nth time, and he chuckled lowly to himself as he watched the seconds go by slowly, debating taking yet another line of cocaine even though it’d been barely ten minutes since his last one. But hey, go big or go home, right?
He still had yet to take a single pill, and he didn’t plan to take one anytime soon either. He wanted his chance of survival to be as low as they could possibly be after all, and that meant he’d have to drink up his soju and snort as much of the cocaine as possible before he’d be swallowing the benzos down at last. He was bound to be completely smashed when he’d finished up all the soju and he’d be high as a kite after a couple of grams of coke, and after a lot of googling and research he’d found that that would most likely be the best time for him to finally knock back the pills and let nature do its job on him.
Once again leaning forward for another line, Jeongguk let his mind wander off as he fixed up the white powder into a neat line and rolled up the same 10 000 won bill he’d used for his past lines. Soon, it’d be time. Soon, he could take the pills. Soon, he’d finally join Taehyung.
-
9:14 p.m., Jeongguk was just starting on his third bottle of soju, bringing the large glass bottle out with him as he took his nth cigarette of the evening while looking out over Seoul’s busy streets. The sun had gone down completely just a couple of minutes before, leaving only the lights of man to illuminate the tall buildings and bustling streets below. He could just barely make out the forms of individual humans walking the streets, showing to him as ants as they hurried along the sidewalks next to the speeding cars and in between the skyscrapers surrounding them. It reminded him of a big ants nest, and he let out a giddy laugh at the thought of all humans in the world one day turning into super sized ants that now had to deal with all the shit they’d caused the earth.
-
10:10 p.m., and Jeongguk estimated he’d finished roughly three grams of his cocaine together with two and a half bottles of soju, leaving him another gram of coke and a bottle and a half of soju. He was definitely fucked, but it wasn’t anything special if you compared it to how he usually spent his evenings and nights. He somewhat regretted that he hadn’t gotten himself any weed, missing the faint taste in his mouth and slow high that it gave him, and usually he would have just made a quick call to Namjoon and taken an uber to meet the elder up before retreating back into his apartment and its crushing loneliness but that wasn’t anything he could do tonight. He found comfort in his soju instead, chugging another load of bitter liquor before he tossed his cigarette and went back into the warmth of his apartment.
-
11:24 p.m., and Jeongguk had nearly finished his last soju bottle; only a couple of sips remained in the bottom of the bottle as he put it back down onto the table, and his eyes finally fell upon the bottle of pills in earnest as his body longed for him to screw the cap open and swallow a couple of them down. He still had a fair bit of cocaine left, probably half a gram or so, but that could wait until later; his first priority were the pills.
He’d went and gotten changed after a quick run to the toilet too, opting that he should at least die while looking his best rather than letting himself be found wearing an oversized t-shirt and old sweatpants. He was wearing one of his fancier button-up shirts, sporting the usual tiny Ralph Lauren logo on the small pocket over his right chest, and a basic pair of black jeans, and he accepted that that was enough for him. He was as ready as he could be.
It was probably time now, wasn’t it?
Another quick glance at the clock showed 11:27, and that meant he still had time to make his birthday his last day on earth. He hadn’t decided to kill himself on his birthday for nothing after all, and he planned on going through with his plans.
Jeongguk let his lips turn up into a small smile before he lifted his body up from the back of the sofa cushions, right arm going out forward to grab ahold of the small pill container before he with used movements opened it up using his left. He gazed down into the bottle only to see the pills seemingly staring right back at him, the green circles laying stacked on top of each other as they showcased neat prints of 80 mixed with the few OC ’s printed into them long before Jeongguk got hold of them. He nearly began to laugh at the sight of the small green orbs as he realised those tiny things were going to be the leading causes of his death, only the reminder of how serious the situation was supposed to be holding him back from filling the empty room with a booming laughter.
He swapped over so that he held the bottle in his right hand before pouring out what he thought was a third of the pills into his left palm, putting the bottle back down onto the table for now before grabbing onto his last soju bottle.
Here goes nothing was the last thought to cross his mind, more of a statement than anything else, before he hit back the pills collected in his palm with one solid movement of his arm, palm pressing against his lips for just seconds before it was substituted with the cool glass of soju, two quick sips helping him swallow down the twenty-some pills before it was time to redo the practise.
Two more times and both the pill container and soju bottle were empty, white plastic standing next to green glass on the living room table as Jeongguk closed his eyes and shook his head as he fought back the reflex to throw up everything he’d just forced into himself.
He gave it a couple of seconds for his body to calm down and let the urges to puke go away before opening his eyes up again, the awake and bloodshot orbs directly travelling down to the cocaine that was left on the table.
He made sure to fix up the line as neatly as he could before he snorted it, putting value in the fact that it was most likely going to be his last line ever as he hyperfocused on making it a work of art rather than just a quick refill as he usually did. He didn’t think twice about using up all of the powder that was left on the mirror, making sure to collect even the stray pieces of white that were spread over the corners as he collected it all up in one last, grand line in the center.
He decided to use a new bill for the line too, foregoing the one he’d been using previously during the evening for a crisp 50 000 won one he fished out of his wallet before rolling it up tightly and holding it up so that just the edge entered his nostril before he leaned forward, covering his other nostril before he got to it. He snorted it up slowly, taking his time with the line as if to savour it before he was out of breath and the cocaine had all been sucked into his nostril and into his system. The drug hit instantly and as the pills had yet to kick in it was as if someone had kicked his ass, the pure adrenaline waking Jeongguk up completely and nearly making him forget about how fucking drunk he was as his eyes widened and his body twitched as his nose began to run.
It didn’t take a genius to notice that he’d managed to get himself a nosebleed, but Jeongguk was no genius while sober and while fucked he was bordering on the opposite, and hence the blood had already stained his shirt when he finally noticed the red liquid dripping out of his nostril. He shot out of the sofa with a string of curses as he rushed into the bathroom, trying to get by as well as he possibly could while his head spun and his body spasmed randomly. After he finally finished ripping out toilet paper from the roll to block his nostril and wipe his face and clothes he took a last quick look in the bathroom mirror, and he barely recognised himself.
He was used to having bloodshot eyes and he’d grown accustomed to how his skin had come to stretch over his facial bones until his past chubby cheeks had turned into sunken pools, but as he let his eyes wander over what he’d become he was almost brought to tears. It didn’t look human, he didn’t look human, but rather reminded him of a ghost of the past; the large eyes that had been compared to a doe’s his entire life were bright red and shining in a way that reminded Jeongguk of a blazing fire, but as far as he knew fire was alive but all he could think of was how lifeless the mind behind his eyes seemed to be. His skin had been breaking out for months by now, but it wasn’t the pimples that caught his attention but rather how pale and almost translucent his skin had became, looking as if there was just one more layer left of coverage until you’d be able to see straight to his skull and into his brain. And with the lower half of his face smeared in dried blood, it didn’t really serve to make things seem any better.
He looked like he was fucking dead already, and imagining how he’d look to the one who’d end up finding his body almost made him sick.
He had to force himself to tear his eyes away from the mirror before tears actually would start pouring out, turning the light off in the bathroom as he began an unsteady journey back to the living room as he went on wobbly legs, his arm shooting out habitually to grab onto his discarded jacket on the sofa as he made his way to the balcony once again.
He’d estimated he still had some ten minutes left until the pills would be kicking in, and that meant that he had time for one last cigarette.
-
Jeongguk had been but a child when he first heard about how your life would flash in front of your eyes as you died, but it seemed like it had come early to him as he slumped down onto the wooden balcony floor and let his back rest against the balcony door.
The first memory that hit him was of the first day he met Taehyung. He remembered how excited he’d been when his parents first told him they’d be getting new neighbours, and how embarrassed he’d been when his parents made him go over and knock on the Kim’s door alone to welcome them. But most of all he remembered how Taehyung had smiled at him when his mother opened the door, the big boxy grin on full display as he introduced himself and vowed that Jeongguk was his best friend.
He remembered when he was seven and Taehyung was nice, how Taehyung had broken his arm while falling down from a tree on the schoolyard and how Jeongguk spent a good twenty minutes lecturing his best friend to be more careful and make sure to take care of himself.
He remembered when he was sixteen and Taehyung was eighteen, how he’d stormed over to the Kim’s apartment just after he’d came out to his parents and his dad had told him that he’d better be joking, or he wasn’t his son. He could still recall just how Taehyung had hugged him tight, his hand playing with Jeongguk’s hair to calm him down as he cried his eyes out into Taehyung’s chest before he was so tired that they ended up going to bed early. The next day Taehyung’s parents told him they’d take him in as if he was their own.
He remembered their first day at university, how both he and Taehyung had woken up nearly an hour early for their first classes and how they ate breakfast in the apartment they’d moved into just a couple of days before as they made small talk to try forget about how nervous they were. He remembered how he’d bid Taehyung goodbye just outside of the humanities building and walked into his first class with shaking legs as he focused on their promise to have lunch together a couple of hours later. When Jeongguk and Taehyung finally met each other again during lunch they’d nearly cried out of relief, right there in the middle of the campus cafeteria.
He remembered the day Taehyung first asked him on a date, how his best friends cheeks had been dusted with pink as he looked everywhere but Jeongguk as they were stood facing each other in their kitchen. He’d nearly started to cry before he remembered to say yes, and Taehyung later told him that those seconds where Jeongguk had stalled had been the most nerve wracking ones in his entire life.
He remembered when Taehyung died, how his lovers form had made asphalt into art as his blood spilled along with Jeongguk’s tears. There was a faint memory of the surrounding world going on around them as he’d held Taehyung in his arms for one last time, how Taehyung had looked at Jeongguk as if he was the biggest treasure in the world even though he must have been in so much pain and how he’d told Jeongguk he loved him one last time before it was his time to pass.
He remembered the first time he’d met Namjoon. It was the opposite of what he would have expected a drug deal to go like as he met the elder at Starbucks in the middle of day, exchanging a few words with the then blonde male before the quick exchange of money to weed and weed to money took place between them and Jeongguk quickly left the café, but not after Namjoon had invited him to take a coffee with him. It took a couple of more times, but in the end Jeongguk finally accepted the offer and ended up befriending the male.
He remembered the last time he met up with the people he now called best friends, just three days ago when it had still been Friday evening and none of them had a single care in the world as they sang their hearts contents out in the dingy karaoke room in between lines of cocaine, soju shots and beers. He recalled how they’d decided Jeongguk didn’t have to pay for anything on that night out because he’d told them he didn’t want any birthday presents, and how he just hadn’t had the heart to fight about it when they’d all had such an earnest look in their eyes.
Jeongguk let his cigarette drop from in between his fingers onto the ground after he took his last toke, stabilising himself by grabbing onto the windowsill that hung out next to him before rising back up to standing position. He took one last glance out of his balcony and out at Seoul before turning around and stalking inside, shutting the balcony door so that it was just slightly open before he let his shaky legs take him back to the sofa.
The TV was still playing in the background as it had the entire evening, and Jeongguk welcomed it as he finally felt the first effects of the pills kicking in as his body relaxed completely. He could barely muster the energy to move himself from sitting position to laying on his side, but after much ado and a lot of second thoughts he finally found himself laying down on the sofa, head facing straight up to the ceiling as his body sunk deeper into the sofa.
The room was moving as he struggled to keep his eyes open, the sound of the TV becoming warped in the background as his mind were slowly shutting down bit by bit. He didn’t fight the effect of the pills but instead embraced it as a long lost lover, and he knew he didn’t have much longer left as he couldn’t even bring up enough power to raise his arm from the uncomfortable position it was laid in.
Just as Jeongguk’s eyes closed for a final time, there was only one thing left on his mind.
Taehyung, I’m so sorry. I love you.