Archive of Our Own

The way life works is a true wonder. Expect the unexpected, predict the unpredictable. It’s all bound to happen one day, at a certain point of time in our very lives. You just have to catch that split moment, the millisecond on the dot—where a mini twist in your words or actions can bring about a very drastic change. It can be a tiny alteration that causes the downfall or rise of a situation. The choices we make for ourselves or others, is very much alike to a heavy dew sliding off a leaf and carelessly falling into stagnant water. The mini waves of the impact send the lily pads nearby dancing, a floating hibiscus petal to drift further into the unknown and push a sleeping fish a centimetre away from entering the opening of a heron’s beak. 
It’s the butterfly effect, minuscule yet major.

Be it a coincidence or some cruel twisted joke god decided to play on you—you solemnly swear you heard a voice of another being in this house. A house you were supposedly alone in. It could be the cannibal. There is more than a fair share of emphasis placed on ‘supposedly’ because at this very moment, you are certain as heck that you are not the only one in here. Here being the old crooked house that sits alone by the edge of the second highest hill in town, standing obstinate to the ground despite the occasional flooding showers and hurricanes your region suffered. The old folks claim that the house belongs to a war veteran whose entire family starved while waiting for their sole bread-winner to come home. The man never made it back to his doorstep where his three children and spouse awaits, hope draining with every growl of their stomachs and in complete oblivion to the impending fall to the grave. Every so often, the family of five could be sighted behind the murky windows.
However, there are also mediums who concluded from ridiculous superstitions and calculations of the house’s location that a possible dead body could still be inside, and its vengeful spirit is bent on seeking retribution for the plain injustice of their murder.
Depressed souls would see it as the way to the end, Blank minds and torn hearts enter the house with nothing but one wish—death. The number of suicides that occurred in the house is a little over a hundred—one hundred and three spirits to be exact, nothing more, nothing less—loitering within its four walls. There were instances of teenagers stepping foot into the forbidden site with hopeful hearts for a thrill and a video camera in hand, seeking for juicy content to gain views and be the first to break the belief — the bunch of kids were reported missing on the news a few hours after. 

The statistics are somewhat the building blocks to the infamous reputation it holds today. When the police went inside to search for the families’ missing loved ones, it did not work out at all. In fact, the number rebelliously increased, the police force losing yet another one of their colleagues. That’s when they decided that everyone is prohibited to enter, unless they carried a death wish. It is almost like the Suicide Forest in Japan, tarnishing those who visit with a conflicted soul. 
Even the authorities chose to not touch the house, claiming it was still on a long-term lease. And under whose name? They would never reveal.
The house became something everyone refuses to lay finger on, or even talk about. The ominousness it contained drove humans miles away, like a sleeping dragon not wanting to be bothered the slightest bit. 
It’s almost like a door to a parallel universe or something.

You did your homework regarding the possessed piece of property. The internet’s local ghost buster website tells you about the rumours circulating the house. 
You can’t escape once you make it through the two front doors.
This is as clear as day already, the number of missing bodies serving as solid evidence. Questions however, still bugged at your mind. Why exactly is that? Were all the window sills locked? Or is the door just created to be one-way? Sometimes people are so caught up with their fantasies that they forget to look at things more logically. 
A cannibal was living inside. 
This is just a mere speculation, but it was not impossible. It seemed like the most rational explanation one could provide to the disappearance of people. Leftover bones can be easily cremated, destroying all traces of the deceased. But you had rather resort to jumping off a cliff or simply overdosing to kill yourself—than to ferociously be feasted on by your own kind. 
It was some kind of portal to another world. 
Although these kind of things were not scientifically proven, it was still a valid suspicion because nothing ever made sense about that creepy house. 
Maybe people went in and get sucked into another dimension or flinged into hell. Maybe the books were right. As well as the shows and movies on television.


Everybody was afraid, of what the gaunt and creaky relic held between its paint-flaked walls and dirt-smeared window panes, why people went in and never got out, why citizens were constantly missing—but the discovery couldn’t be anything more valuable than a life. But you clearly cared a whole lot about yours, because you are not even batting a lash when you tell your friends that you were going to check the cursed place out. 

All you receive is the dropping of jaws and the heavy pleas for you to not go, because apparently ten years ago a man as bold as you executed the similar plan you had and-
“Guess what Y/N,” Woo-gi leaned across the table, the bowl of mashed potatoes shifting forward a little. 
“He died. Unnatural cause of death. His body was never found and the saddest thing is that the family couldn’t even give him a proper burial or send him away in peace.” 
Her attempted blazing eyes fixed on yours, and her fingers creep to the knife resting on the surface of the table cloth. Woo-gi is making the best efforts to get you to empathise with the family of the deceased man, knowing that trick works perfect on your soft putty heart.

Lifting the cutlery up, she brings it down and mercilessly stabs into the piece of char-grilled pork chop for effect. There is a shredding sound of the piece of meat being torn apart by your dear pal. The vegetables at the side jump up in shock. 
“Gone. Just like that.” Her gaze finally drifts to the dish plate and leaves yours, allowing you to ponder over her words. In her final attempt to scare you out of the decision, you only chew on your corn salad nonchalantly.
She was right, it was a deadly risk but you wished you treasured your life as much as a normal person would. 
You didn’t have any care in the world, dead or alive. 
So why not make the reason of your death be 'died exploring a haunted house’, how cool and mysterious would that be on the headlines? 
“Sounds like a dream come true for me,” You sweep the coleslaw you have no interest in to one side, isolated from the rest of the dish. 
Gone forever, just like that? You have been spending the past few years of your life sinking into the mattress and hoping the blankets would swallow you whole and cease your existence—what made her think that you would be afraid of something like that?
Then you realise that your friends have no clue about your disorder. 
In fact, no one did. 
In their eyes, you were this outgoing girl who cracked plenty of jokes and lived with a happy family. At times, you would go overboard with your imagination but that’s something people who felt constrained and suffocated often possess. Their stale life is the cause of their fantasies and aspirations running too wild. 

She shakes her head and sighs, exasperated.

It was like there was no words in the dictionary that can come together to bandage the open wound in your heart, or get rid of the black sticky substance bugging your insides since day one—even as a close friend, the most she can do is to pray for the best for you. 
“I’m telling you one last time,” Woo-gi lunges forward to grab both of your hands, eyes glistening with worry, trying yet again, her utmost best to stop you in your dangerous expedition.
For the last time.
“Don’t go.”

Life works in mysterious ways, and you’re the kind of person who would stubbornly step on a freshly mopped floor and try walk across it despite having a bright yellow caution sign shoved in your face. Maybe this would be the turning point in your life. A life which encompasses of…well, nothing much. The world’s too tiring of a place to live in.
And that is also why, you are in said haunted house, face to face with an unexpected human being.

“Hey,”
Every drop of blood in your body freezes.
It’s the first thing you hear before a piercing scream leaves your chest, rattling the window panes.
The sudden call startles the shit out of the shivering mess you were, your body jumping backwards out of reflex.
You shun away from the piercing light being aimed straight into your eyes, arms coming up to block the sudden encounter.
Cannibal? Cannibal!
You shrieked and jumped back further upon realisation, making a beeline for the doors. 
Both feet took you there as fast as they could, the wooden planks beneath your heavy stomps threatening to snap. Except when you reach for the handle, the first rumour is proven to be true. 
The doors wouldn’t budge. 
You shake them with all your might, only left with creaks and a stubborn obstruction to your fleeing. Your heart pounds wildly against your chest, with the knowledge that the monster is a few feet away from your panic-stricken form. 

“Just give up.” 
The low voice appears behind you, the hairs on your back shooting up and your hands frozen. Why were you even so afraid? You wanted to die anyways. 
Nothing is able to coherently come out of your parched throat, only able to quiver in fear.
“Do I really look that ugly?” The tone is derisive, so human-like and you think you may have overreacted. 
Whipping around, you are only met with bright white as a beam of light is pointed directly to your face. You may have been mistaken. But that doesn’t stop you from feeling threatened.
“Put that away.” You commanded and once the shining path of white is directed to the ground, your hands slowly descend from shielding your face. 
“Kim Taehyung?” 
“Y/F/N?”
The both of you speak out in unison upon the recognition, despite the low lighting playing as an obstacle. 
It was dark, but you can almost make out the look of shock on his face as he takes a moment to register your existence right in front of him. 
As for you, relief overwhelmed the surprise you felt and for once, you were thankful to see Kim Taehyung.
A fair bit of questions were going through your mind now, and your heart was close to jumping out of your mouth any time soon. But somehow you managed to stay relatively calm. As long as Taehyung was standing there, looking at you with a face of confusion, you wanted to end your life faster to escape the interaction with this guy. Or to explain what in the world you were doing in a horrid place like here. God wouldn’t let you die in peace, he had to let you bump into Taehyung minutes or hours—nobody knows—before your anticipated death. 

The only thing going through your mind is how you have to explain why you were inside the most forbidden house in town.
Then, another thought flickers in your mind.
What was he doing here then? It couldn’t be…

For some reason, he stands there, still astounded by your presence. 
Wait no, it had nothing to do with your presence. 
It was you.
Just like how having a guest in here came off as no surprise to him, but the fact that it was you…
You feel like you rendered him speechless, disbelief widening his eyes and parting his lips. He was acting strange. Just a few moments ago, he was telling you so confidently about the fate of the doors and now there was a 180 degree change in his vibe. 
He kept staring at you, the moonlight flaunting a light shimmer to his black orbs and you felt queasy under his relentless gaze—like he held some sort of power over your empty soul. You couldn’t decipher just what is it in his eyes, your head hurt as you tried to think.

It was never the same case in school though. 
While you exuded an aura of confidence wherever you walked, leaving a trail of your floral scented shampoo and fruity perfume, Taehyung would keep his head low and try to blend in with the shadows. He didn’t smell like anything, nor did he frequently speak. To his pals, at the very least. 
The moment you hear the name Kim Taehyung, the first word that comes to mind is eccentric. You weren’t exactly someone to judge people in this manner, but you know him barely—only to the extent where you can only think of an adjective like that to describe him. You’ve seen him more than a couple of times around in school—always carrying a vintage camera around—but have never spoken a word to him. 
For an obvious reason, he was located in the best class—the one where the top students are—while you are in just another average class. He was just another schoolmate to you.
The both of you have never interacted during your whole journey in high school, except for that one time. 
However, you have only heard things about him. Unpleasant things that make your blood boil, because you feel like everyone should be treated equally regardless.
One would say, “Kim Taehyung? You mean the guy who sits in the garden for an hour after school, waiting for a butterfly to land on his pinky finger? I mean, who even does that?” 
Another would comment, “He’s constantly talking to himself and his polaroid films, if that is even possible. Other than that, he either talks to flowers or trees. Sometimes, he eats by himself and then he raises his spoonful of rice to feed the person sitting opposite him—only that there isn’t anyone there. Some girls screamed and ran away, even their boyfriends were scared of such a person. That is mainly why they didn’t do anything bad to him.” 
That one day, things blew out of proportion.
It was a normal Tuesday, nothing extraordinary but school and sleep. 
You were seated with your usual group of friends during lunch, when suddenly a yell breaks through the canteen, followed by several laughters induced with pure evil. Almost the entire cohort turns to the infamous corner—just a small turn into the back kitchen where the trash is taken out by the vendors—the place where many students are dragged in there and come out with a  blue black to the eye and nasty purple patches all over their limbs. The whole cafeteria slowly fills with hushed whispers and serious gossiping, heads turning to one another unable to drop the topic for now. 
Yoongi walks out from the corner, followed by a few of his friends of a milksop. 
Wussies, you silently remark on their terribly feigned outer strength and masks of bravery. 
Nothing but imbeciles, you curse them in your head. 
Yoongi and weaklings plop right next to you, the eyes from the surrounding tables discreetly catching up on the interaction between the both of you.
“Y/N! You look gorgeous today.” He tries to place his hand onto your waist but you quickly shun away from him. The small action itself caused the whole canteen to blanketed with silence, every pair of eyes now focusing on the drama that was about to unfold between the notorious gangster and his proclaimed girl. 
“Don’t fucking touch me you disgusting piece of shit.” 
You have had enough. 
The menacing words seem to pierce through every wall in the school, every person at the scene being informed of your opinion towards Yoongi all this while. 
You stand up, pointing a finger of accusation directly at his face—to which he flinches at, caught off-guard by your swift movement. If you had the opportunity to get away with it, you would have dug your nails into his eyeballs and gouge them out of his eye sockets, then feed one each to the weaklings by his side. 
Instead, you take a deep breath. 
Small gasps leave everyone’s lips and he panics—ego bruised by your harsh rejection. 
Yoongi was your boyfriend. 
You’ve been tolerating him for quite some time now, all for the sake of your parents. Without this relationship, your dad would have never been able to clinch the business deal with his father. 
All it took was a couple of sweet phrases and fake smiles, you couldn’t be bothered with the rest of him other than the profit he could bring to your company.
Yoongi on the other hand, seems to interpret the relationship in a very different way. He seems to have grown fond of you and naively believed that love between the two of you is real. 
You never put a single thought or effort into the relationship with Yoongi, not wanting to mislead him any further but some guys just can’t seem to get the message, despite the many obvious hints you’ve dropped. 
You never ask him out.

Or when he does, you would only politely decline. 
In school, most of the time you stick like glue to your friends and try to avoid him and his rambunctious clique at all costs. Your dear friends took empathy in you and helped you out of certain situations concerning Yoongi at times. 
Somehow your boyfriend’s pleasant way of proving his worth was to step on the backs of people who seemed inferior to him to climb his own ladder of pride. It was like after each time he nailed someone to the ground and kicked their guts out, Yoongi feels like he reached another level of achievement.
It’s sickening to the thought and you want to have nothing got to do with that narcissistic asshole. 
This behaviour of his begin not too long ago, a few days prior when he marked his first victim. You were puzzled, but you didn’t probe. He bullies physically and mentally, using their screams and pleas to feed his ego and push himself higher up the ladder. 
He started torturing anyone who ticks him off or come in his way to no end, and you think you may just be next albeit being his supposed girlfriend. The conduct only made you despise him even more.
Come to the thought of it, the things you do for your parents include self-depreciation and the loss of any shame left in your skin. 
You can feel the anger slowly twisting in his veins, radiating off his now clenched fists.
Contrary to his untamed anger building within him, his friends are slowly retreating from his side, trembling in fear at your spit of acid. 
You chuckled, almost despicably—both at the cowering of his tough underlings and the way he almost peed his pants at the mere fling of your index finger. 
He realises that you are mocking his fragility and there are a couple of muffled giggles ignited in the crowd—his temper starts to get the better of his mind as the emasculation finally dawns over him.
Before he can lay a finger on you, you are already a step ahead of him—grabbing the cup of hot tea off the table and splashing the boiling liquid onto his uniform, scalding his body. You thought you had might as well went all out in punishing a rascal like him.

Your friends reach for your arm, trying to hold you back from going any further in dealing with the jerk and you throw the cup onto the ground, causing it to shatter into fragments—the sound of the porcelain splitting and cracking into pieces haphazardly rings through their ears. 
You’d like to refer it as a clear warning to everybody witnessing the event—to simply not mess with you.
You wished to be left alone.
While he screams in agony at the possible second-degree burn, you waltz away from the commotion nonchalantly. You think that that scumbag ought to have a taste of his own medicine someday, and if no one else dare stuff it down his throat, you would more than gladly do so.

You find yourself striding off—to the hidden corner behind the stalls. 
And there, you discovered the bloodied body of Taehyung. With a broken camera by his side.
A boy like him deserved more than this, no human should ever be hurt as badly as this—especially for no reason at all but one’s inability to control their emotions, and the poor decision to vent it out on others can make horrible things happen. You kneel down by his side, checking the wounds inflicted on him. Fishing out a packet of tissues you always keep in your pocket for emergencies, you wipe the blood stains off his abused skin. He’s in too much pain to express his surprise at your assistance, grunting as you pressed the tissue against the wound.
When the bleeding on a certain cut has stopped, you offer him the support of your arm to let him sit up straight. Taehyung holds onto your forearm and pulls himself up from the ground. He groans as he does so, his back clad with bruises and soreness. You noticed that he was stunned into a daze, probably at the grasp of realisation that someone was actually helping him. 

But you ignored his feelings, just shifted your attention fully onto the fixing of his injury. 
You recall having a plaster tucked away in your purse and you quickly take it out as well, secretly laughing at its design—hot pink with Hello Kitty. 

Taehyung doesn’t miss the sound of light escaping your lips, and he himself bites down on his lip to hold back a chortle at the girlish visual of the bandaid—temporarily pushing the questions behind your intentions away.
You actually felt glad you could bring a smile to his face with something like the childish print of a bandaid. 
Nonetheless, you peel it off and gently place it over the deep cut on his forearm as he tries to control his wincing. 
“Hey, it’s alright. You can cry out for all you want,” You smoothed the plaster flat and tight on his skin. When you lightly slap the face of the Hello Kitty to tease him, he lets out a yelp—something that sounds puzzlingly adorable coming from him. 
“Here, have this.”
You fish out a piece of candy from the other side of pocket, handing it over you the victim. 
The amount of surprise he shows never ceases.
You let out a short laugh, “I know you’re not a kid, but still…” You smile up at him. 
“Just take it as a form of apology for what I caused you to go through.” 
Taehyung doesn’t move a muscle, just sillily blinking at your actions. 
You take his hand and shove the sweet into his palm, closing his fingers around it. 

For a brief moment, both your eyes meet. 

There is an unexplainable exchange of thoughts running through each other’s minds and it was close to feeling like the two of you shared something in common.
Taehyung was ostracised in school and probably the life he had out there judging by his abstruse personality and unfathomable behaviour. He was a prisoner out here in the real world. Freedom, but yet he can’t truly express himself without being placed behind bars in the eyes of others. You are guilty of doing so in the past, when he was nothing but a lingering, mystifying shadow that held no importance in your life. That’s exactly what you did to him—judge and rule him out of the ordinary. All you feel for him is sympathy, and that isn’t anywhere better than the culprits themselves if you weren’t about to step out and lend him a helping hand. 
Regret washes over your system as his dark pupils venture into your soul. You were not as innocent as others perceive you to be. Bystanders were the invisible strokes of support to the metal bars that locked him up. 
His hand, although held by you, was trying to cling onto your grasp and not wanting you to leave.
You would consider yourself a lucky chap indeed, having born into this world with food and shelter, kin and kith. In fact, rather luckier than the rest to be able to own what you like and not solely what you need. Above all of the materials your parents could afford, you were trapped in incongruity of being a prisoner of your own. 
You didn’t know what you were passionate about in life, and to live without passion is akin to being dead. You just did well in your studies because the society deems that degree certificate as a strong foundation in your job. But you truly did not know if you really enjoyed burning the midnight oil to continuously mug or if the elation of attaining a perfect score on your assessment is pure, or just for the sake of your insatiable parents. 
Education is key. 
Well definitely, to a certain extent and you have witnessed how far your own set of parents are willing to go as long as you achieved soaring colours of distinction. Sleepless nights, wandering mind and a stagnant heart.
Sometimes the urge to pretend to be ill to escape the torment of school. Sometimes the subconscious act of bringing the kitchen scissors to your wrist and slit… 
You want to collapse to the ground and never be able to wake up again. 
You wished a drunk driver would accidentally run you over and end everything for you. 
Then nobody would know about how tired you were of this pointless life.
You were a prisoner of yourself too. 
With no doubt, you and Taehyung are definitely similar in many ways the world can’t see. 
“See you…soon, I guess.” A soft chuckle emits from you like that happening would be a miracle, but the expression does not reach your eyes. Your eyes that were blocked by a wall of defence to your vulnerability of an emptiness. 
She is broken. 
A whisper goes by his ear.
She needs help.
The raspy voice travelled to his other ear, making him shiver slightly but unnoticeably. 
Taehyung could feel it too but he was in no place to ask about your wellbeing. 
He could only stare and wonder. 
The eye contact was broken off, before your hand recedes from his, carefully. He catches the way a faint smile ghost on your features as quickly as it appeared.
A bittersweet kind of happiness.
But he doesn’t say a word, even after your figure grows smaller with every step you take back to class.
What you missed, is the shutter of the camera lens, floating in the air.
“Hey, don’t touch that!” 
He snatches the device back and winces at the stretch he feels in his back muscle.

“Y/N.” The wooden planks beneath him cursed out loud, warning sirens of his voice turning stern. Besides his low voice and creaks of weak wood and nails, there is only a dripping sound from some leaking pipe. 
“What are you doing here?!” 
It is the second time he has raised the question to you, but you only keep silent, eyes searching the room for answers. Why hadn’t you disappeared or get eaten by some ferocious beast yet?
Taehyung was only complicating your attempt of suicide. 
You tried to keep your head clear when you first pushed the rusty front door open, disallowing the memories to flow into your mind. It was a blockage to all forms of happiness in your life, to prevent your pathetic self from backing out. 
But Taehyung, an actual human being, catching you in the act of wanting to kill yourself just shot a dose of reality into your numbing heart and racing thoughts. 
“Uh…” You wet your lips. “What about you? What are you doing here?” You turn the cameras back to him.
It would not be shocking if he came here to take his life as well.
Taehyung purses his lips in serious contemplation before candidly answering. 
“I can see ghosts,” He looks down like it was something to be ashamed about. That wasn’t the case for you. You were completely taken aback by his confession but you found it extremely intriguing. 
“Oh—Wait what?”
One thing about the revelation was that it for sure explained a lot about the way Taehyung acts. You trust his words, but you don’t know how to link it to the fact that he was standing right in front of you in the living room of this damned house. 
Raising a brow at him, you wish for him to elaborate further.
“I uh, heard r-rumours circulating around in school, that uh,” He pinches his brows. “You were going to come in here. So I kind of decided to see if it was true.” 
You were amazed by his candidness.
“And it is.” You mused.

It was heartwarming to see that someone actually bothered to risk their life to come look for you. 

Then again, Taehyung is a guy filled with secrets. God knows, but maybe he is the owner of this house.
When his eyes capture yours for one more time, it drowned you into the whirlpool of emotions he was feeling. Something like denial, frustration and lastly, regret.
The eye contact is never broken. Like Taehyung was staring so hard at you to try and figure the different parts of you out, to evaluate every inch of you and you squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze. 
“Why are you looking at me like that?” You croaked out, beginning to feel very creeped out despite the tinge of softness laced in his eyes. 
“You—Urm, you—! Argh!”
He only hesitates even more, turning into a stuttering mess. 
You jump back in surprise at his reaction.
Lost and confused as to how to provide you with a suitable reply, he yells and pulls at his locks of hair. It was when he proceeds to fall to the ground on his knees and seemingly begin whimpering into his palms, all surprise turned into worry for the guy.
You kneeled down and called out to him. 
“Shit—Taehyung!”

- - -

“What do you seek, young man?”
“Your whole point here is to know and advice me.” Taehyung bites back.
“Very well. An unsolved mystery, something concerning a girl and regarding the old house just down the street.” He shuffles his cards and keep them away neatly.
It seemed like those tools will not be of any use to Taehyung, and he clearly understood why the man’s face have fallen drastically—it isn’t a simple case a few cards can crack. 
You were not only beautiful, you were inculcated with kindness, you held a type of pureness lost by many as they grow up, you spoke in a manner that is highly respectable and the crowfeet that form at the side of your eyes whenever you laughed too hard couldn’t get any more adorable.
He shifts uncomfortably on the hard wooden seat, and gulps anxiously.
“Was her body found?” 
Taehyung doesn’t know. He doesn’t know where the hell you went or what the fuck you were doing, he only knows that when his eyes flew open, he felt the cold of the night stinging on his skin and an empty space next to him. You were no longer in his arms and the next moment he is springing up from the worn out couch and beginning his search for you. 
He looked every nook and cranny of the house for you but to no avail. 
The only resort left got him sitting across a renown psychic. But even the expertise in this region seems to find this case uncrackable. 
“No.” 
He tilts his head, bringing out a rock of some sort. Taehyung sees it as a mere rock but not to him apparently. 
“This is the Magic Stone.” His fingers fidget around with the purple coloured object. 
He does this continuously, causing Taehyung to perk an eyebrow up at his claim. 
The psychic burrows into deep concentration, a conclusion forming in his head.
Then, all movement ceases. 
“Her soul has to bring you there herself.” The medium’s advice sounded strained, like it was the hardest thing to come to a conclusion like that. 

It’s a clear excuse when he says the reason of those teardrops rolling down his cheeks are caused by the wind.

- - -

You want to reach out and pat him on the back in hopes of alleviating his pain but you quickly retract it back as the muffled sobs through his fingers grow even louder. 
All you could wonder at that point in time was whether something bad was happening to Taehyung. Maybe the demons in this house were taking him away first. Maybe he is really going to die. Then, with every drop of care drained from your exhausted body, you placed your hand on his clothed back with a strong determination to do your best and ease him (into the underworld most likely) without any pain. 
“Are you okay?” 
Only for his cries to stop abruptly when he feels your hand smoothing over his back.
Hastily, Taehyung removes his hands from his face and turns around to look at you. 
His eyes were red and swollen from all the desperate weeping, saliva of sorrow pooled in his mouth as he watches you with a kind of anguish and concern. It mirrored the look you gave him when you saw him lying on the ground, beaten up.
This is where the two of you are similar. Prisoners, but of two entirely different reasons.
You drifted your gaze to his elbow and notice the striking dash of pink.
The band aid still being there was what solidified the certainty that this was all real. 
This wasn’t some kind of twisted dream. 
And that would only mean one thing.
Because your hand did not manage to rub his back, for the paleness casting over it only sank into his body, deep into his spine—only for his body to be in one piece as you fast to recede it like you had just touched a strong flame—unable to feel anything touching your palm even when you made that physical contact with him.

“Taehyung… why…” You inspect your hands carefully. Your skin was never this white. All the hairs on your forearm had disappeared as well, your whole body lacking any hint of life. It felt surreal. Like something that would only occur in dreams. “Why can’t I touch you?” 
Maybe if you try pinching yourself, you would wake up. Maybe this was just one of your daily nightmares from stress. 
It was when you started aggressively pinching the pale skin on your arms, thighs, waist—you realised you could still feel yourself. The only difference being that it was so, so cold. It was similar to touching an ice pack, frosty and nothing much else. Cold. That’s how you feel and the perplexity that hit you all at once began transforming into larges beams of anger, sadness and helplessness. 

You wanted to cry as loud as you could for help. 
“Why do I feel so cold?!" 

You refused to believe anything your senses were telling you. Everything your naked eyes were showing you. Lunging forward, you run your hands all over Taehyung again and hope to actually feel something tangible. To your dismay, your fist only goes through his heart like he was made of air—no, like you were made of air. 
You were the dead one here.

"The police have searched the whole compound of the town and spread the news of the missing school girl country wide. In the past two weeks of finding the teenage girl, Y/F/N is still unable to be located. If you have come across—Zap.”
Taehyung clicks the button on the remote control and flings it to the other end of the couch in frustration. He ruffles through his hair, hoping for hints of you to magically pop up in his head. 
The thing is, the both of you had barely spoken to one another. 
Plus, he had a tough time speaking to the people at his-and your-school. 
One week. One whole week since the disappearance of your body. The police are proven to be fucking useless and incompetently unreliable, he mentally notes. He figured that the fastest method to locate you, would require him to act out on his own. The list of things that can happen to your body goes down a long scroll that even Taehyung himself is unwilling to imagine.
He wants you to at least, still be in one piece when he finds you. 

He uses the term body, because your soul is for sure loitering somewhere in town. It can’t go too far from your body, a rule he remembers by heart. So, it wouldn’t be entirely impossible to detect where your corpse would be.
Think, think, think! 
He repeats like a mantra in his bursting head. 
Where would you go if you were this free, lingering spirit?

And then he recalls.

“You’re up here again.”
He pushes himself up onto his usual spot—a high wall surrounding the perimeter of the rooftop, granting anyone up here a perfect view of the school field and vast blue sky. 
The job of the wall is to prevent any students from falling over and have their bodies crush to pulp when they plop to the ground floor. 
But Taehyung doesn’t play by the rules. 
Where is the fun in that? He often questions anything that has to do with system and order.
As a person who lives by pure intuition, Taehyung brings himself to the top floor for the second time after just doing so the day before. 
It could be the voices whispering encouragements for him to pay upstairs a visit, or maybe it had to do with a very strong gut feeling tugging at his chest. 
Nonetheless, he was here.
The boy from yesterday is situated at the exact place as before. 
His skin was terrifyingly pale—but not translucent—and the cracking of his bones could still be heard whenever he swinged his legs. He must have just died a few days ago, Taehyung concludes.
The boy doesn’t acknowledge Taehyung, nor does he reply.
“What are you doing here?” Taehyung cranes his neck a little to face the boy properly—who in turn was staring at his feet with a strange amount of attention. Then upon following his line of sight, Taehyung realises how small and young the boy was—his own legs were almost twice as long as the kid’s.
“My brother,” He finally speaks, but only softly.
Taehyung digests his answer for a moment, before cautiously popping the second question. 
He knew better than to ask why the boy had died, it would probably even send the kid into a fury and then to hell, which was the last thing Taehyung wanted to happen to him. 
“If you don’t mind me asking,” He nervously grips the edge of wall. The boy tipped his chin up slightly, intrigued by his words. His big round eyes came into view, leaving a heavy load to weigh at Taehyung’s heart. His eyes, still freshly glistening and vibrant with blackness illustrated the bright and long road that awaited him in his life, only to be torn apart by whatever fatally tragic accident he was met with. 
It’s a pity. It’s a pity how some promising futures can be so easily robbed of in a blink of the eye. It is not a frequent occasion where tears pricked at Taehyung’s eyes. 
He closes them for a second, before getting the question out.
“Who is your brother?” 
The boy now turns to fully face him, legs still swinging regardless.
His eyes looked way bigger and innocent than Taehyung had thought they would be. And it doubled the pain beneath his ribs.
It’s suffering to bump into an innocent soul. 
He had rather someone who acted the way they deserved their death. 
The boy switches his stare on Taehyung now, silent while his orbs grow shinier.
“I’m sorry in advance,” The child looks like he was about to burst into tears. Taehyung felt the same.
What was a sweet boy like him even apologetic for? 
“Min Yoongi.” 
Taehyung blinks in surprise.
The boy was gone.

A series of giggles echoed in the stairway and without another thought, Taehyung hops down to hide himself from whoever was there.
He does not recall any platform being built after the wall. He simply knows that if he falls over from such a risky position, he would die. He heaves a deep sigh of relief when the platform does not crumble into pieces under his full weight.
He thinks it must be the doing of the boy.
His smile is cut off when the footsteps and voices grow louder, noticeably two female students just hanging out. 
Unlike being rash as himself, they only prop their elbows on the wall, admiring the scene as that.
Which he was grateful for, otherwise he would definitely get caught for loitering around carelessly.
“Finally. Something great about this shit hole.” 
Taehyung sticks onto the wall like a lizard, trying his best to be away from the edge.
“Honestly, the perfect spot to take fresh breather,” the other voice makes an appearance. “No one ever comes up here unless you want to be making a serious offence.” 
A flock of birds crosses the sky and Taehyung secretly hopes they don’t share the tiny space with him.
“For peace and quiet, I’d give anything.” 
The first voice replies.
He silently nods in strong agreement.
“Then, where are you going to get your dear peace and quiet after this semester?” 
The second girl with the deeper voice asks.
“Hm, great question.” The first girl ponders and probably stares into the horizon.
“Somewhere with sand and salt maybe.” 
She answers seriously, after much consideration.
“Can’t you say the beach? You idiot.” 
“Whatever. Just checking if that peanut brain of yours is working.” 
A gasp can be heard. 
“You better run before I catch you!” 
Their shoes tap on the concrete and their voices gradually fade away. 
“Hey you! What are you doing up there?!” Someone like a security personnel yells at him from downstairs.
Now, how the hell was he supposed to get back up there?

She must not be far.
His feet dents the soaked sand beneath, leaving prints that queued in line to be washed up by the incoming waves.
With the ends of his pants rolled up, he spins around aimlessly to search for you. 
It was fortunately a weekday, which allowed the beach to be emptier.
And that would make the task of spotting you much easier.
He strolls along the coast, patiently kindling his instincts to take him wherever you were to be. 
It feels almost surreal—the texture of the grainy sand rubbing against the sole of his feet, the gentle whispers of the arriving waves, the wind slicing through his thick hair, ruffling it like feathers—how peculiar it felt to realise that he is alive, being hyperaware of all five (or six) senses. The tangibility of things would signal that he is actually a living human, but something intangible is missing in him and it makes the whole experience of being alive feel so…detached. Every part of his body felt like it didn’t belong to him—it was his toes coming in contact with the sand and not him, it was his hair dancing with the wind and not him, it was his legs moving on their own accord and not Taehyung. This is what happens when you interact with supernatural beings for the whole of your life, he thinks.
“Hey watch your step!” 
A shout intrudes his thoughts.
Taehyung pauses, retracting his feet back. 
The small kid carries on building her sandcastle with her companion. 
Watching their busy hands, Taehyung tries to figure out who exactly was the one who warned him. 

Regardless, he whips out his camera to take a shot of the girl building sandcastles. 
“Yay! It’s done!” The girl pats the top of the castle and runs towards the benches shrieking in contentment, failing to withhold the excitement of breaking the news of the small achievement to her mother. 
The other girl however, only smiles at Taehyung and vanishes.
He runs his eyes across the ground. 
Just below his toes, there laid a tiny baby turtle. 

It scurries, towards nowhere, seemingly unable to acquire the skill of waddling on the fine sand like all his other pals. 
A meter ahead, his friends totter in clusters towards the entrance of the sea. The poor buddy struggles hard to walk properly, let alone find the correct direction home. 
He suddenly grows conscious of the couple of seagulls chilling by the water. 
But he was too preoccupied with the aim to find you to bother about the weak creature.
As he was just about to dismissively stroll away, something tells him to make a turn and save that baby animal. He should make a difference when he can. He definitely should. He could actually salvage a situation. 
A life that is. 
He jogs back faster than the predator birds could, quickly finding the turtle again and gently picked it up. The shell looked too big for its body and its two big ebony eyes popping out of its sockets gazing at Taehyung—are filled with gratitude. 
Or so he assumes.
The creature makes some kind of fuzzy noise—of happiness—when it is put down onto the sea line to join its siblings. The rambunctious clique waddles their way into the ocean, gliding across and surging into the water, one by one, delightfully.
The seagulls trots away, lunch stolen. 
He continues his trail. 

Slowly, a pier approaches. 
And similar to Yoongi’s brother, a girl sits at the end of the wooden platform all by herself.
He carefully crafts his steps towards the lone spirit, begging the planks to not creak too loudly in fears of scaring her away.
With every inch he gets closer to the girl, the clouds present in the sky turns darker, accompanied with the flush of even more greyness which eventually overlays the initial coat of cyan.
The familiarity of the uniform boosts the confidence in him to call out your name.
“Y/N?” 
She stands up—indeed the girl reported missing—and Taehyung was glad it was you.
The troubles fogging his mind seem to have cleared at the plain sight of you.
He was relieved that he had at least found your soul. It was another thing to find your body though, and that is the main objective here. 
Connecting your body with your soul would be the final resort in sending you off in peace.
He had a day left. Twenty four hours before you wouldn’t be able to leave in peace. Before your pure soul would dissipate into a fiery pit of wrath, abandoned in the darkest abyss until you transform into a vengeful spirit. All the hatred, pain and misery would be instilled in your afterlife that is deadly inescapable. These overwhelming amount of negative emotions trapped in your soul would then leave you in this state, forever. 
The sight was inexplicably depressing.
Just a few days ago, you were real to the touch. He could feel your fingers smoothing over the plaster on his arm. He could see the satisfaction radiating off the smile you flashed at him before, leaving. He could smell the light cherry blossom from your shampoo flowing in the air. He could hear the base of your sneakers hitting the floor as you paced your way to class.
Yet now, the wood underneath wouldn’t make a sound as you got up.
Maybe if he had tugged onto your wrist and asked you to stay back a little longer. Maybe if he was quick enough to catch you after school. Maybe then, you wouldn’t have had the chance to end your life. 

Caged by your fingers, was a stalk of pink carnation.

“I heard that pink carnations stand for the remembrance of the dead," 

His brows furrows at your words. 
How is it that you were able to comfort him so easily, while he is here having a difficult time to even form words to express his grief. But he was sure that like him, you didn’t crave for sympathy at all. Maybe if he had clung onto the empty look in your eyes, thinking more than he should, stepping out of his comfort zone to care for you. Then perhaps, this situation would never take place. 
Then with a heaving chest, he clenches his teeth to embrace the fact that you are no longer existent in this real world.
It was pointless to think about all the possibilities that could have dodged this situation.
"I hope someone remembers me.” 
Uncontrollably, a bead of tear seeps out and rolls down his cheek. His nostrils flare up as the sadness overtakes every cell in him that was fighting against the tide of sorrow.
His heart feels like someone plunged their fist into his bare chest and ripped it out. Thrown onto the ground and stomped into pieces.

Lips quivering, Taehyung fights back the devastation and gathers the last scrapes of sensibility in his mind, using all the energy his rationality could afford—brings the camera looped around his neck up to his eyes, and snaps.

Through the lens, a pink carnation levitates above the pier, the ocean, a transverse of blue spread across the rectangular panel, accentuating the vibrant colour of the dainty flower.

The camera lowers, along with his head.

He was sobbing by now, all the while you gently hold the flower and stare at him with the same hollow eyes.
“Why!” He grits out between cries.

 "Why…“ The later one comes out in broken, incoherent snippets.

You were really not here anymore.

With him.
"I’m weaker than you think,” You breathed out with a faint smile following the confession. 
“And don’t you worry, I will return to my body.” 
The fact that you were still trying your best to maintain cheery for him despite being dead twists his heart viciously.
The world is too cruel to you, and to him. 
An angel like you deserves to seek your happiness in a better place like the skies above. 
The visage of you is becoming transparent, signalling your departure.
Taehyung musters all that is left in him to take a step forward and press his palm softly to your face. He could not feel anything but his hand was just there, for support and consolation.
“I will remember you.” 
His words of affirmation sets your heart at ease.

You finally understand how they would all say, that the true pain does not lie within the process of dying, but in truth lies within the witnessing of those who love and care for you, break down. 
After climbing out of your state of denial at your own death, you have come to terms with that fact and wish for nothing more than to end the whole suffering.
It lurches at your heart seeing a guy like Taehyung who you were not even that close to, crying like he had just lost a precious belonging. Like the world had just lost a precious belonging. 
You hoped that people remember you. 

For all your hard work in this world, for all the full marks you attained, for all the certifications you achieved, for all the smiles you have bring and the band aids you have placed on others.
You hope that when people think of you, it is nothing but filled with goodness.
There were, no regrets to say the least. Your body may not be in its best condition, but the accident pulled your death off pretty well. It left you with no second thoughts, no last words, just a brutal blow to your side and head. 

It killed you with perfection, leaving no hesitation and last words—just met with the end in a solid second.

“If anything, I’ll protect you alright?”

Taehyung chuckles unbelievably through sniffs. 

“We’ll meet again.”

A promise.
You gradually dissolve into the thin air—the cold mist and you becoming one— and the skies clear up in no rush.

The carnation drops to the wooden floor with a thud. 

I will remember you. 

It was a chilly night, an expected downpour to attack in about an hour. 
His curtains danced to the rhythm of the wind, flowing about violently.

“The body of the missing school girl has been recovered after a hiker going for his morning exercise smells rotten flesh in the woods. The police suspect that the girl may have jumped off a cliff from above as an attempt of suicide.”

Taehyung shifts his attention back to the mac and cheese turning cold on his lap. At one point, the winds were so rough that the vase sitting on the top of his dresser wobbles in jeopardy before another ferocious blow arrives through his window and topples the glass over, onto the ground. 
Shattered into fragments.
Water spills out and the pink carnation flows along on the liquid like a dead body in a river.

He internally groans at the mess he has to clean up afterwards, but it is only for a short moment before his attention is snatched by the voice of news anchor on television once again.

“However, the forensics department has confirmed with the backing of further detailed analysis of the crime scene, that there were skid marks indicated on the road at the edge of the cliff accompanied by scraps of car paint evident on the victim’s clothes.”

The flower on the ground blackens, curls up into a crushed stalk of wither.