with @taeminxmp, continuing from [ here ]
Yoongi was rarely ever overtly happy, but he usually managed to avoid tipping too far to the opposite end of the scale-- and when he did feel particularly gutted about something, he never, ever shared it. It did not feel fair to unload his grief or angst on anyone else, because he felt like he deserved to suffer.
But this... this was different.
He’d gotten too comfortable. He had forgotten that life was awful and miserable and beyond all else unfair. He had gotten so used to being in Mount Phoenix and having his father and Bora, like a second (better) mother, around to care about him and make sure he was getting out and doing good for himself. He should have known it wouldn’t last, but he felt like a rug had been pulled out from under him when they left, one after the other. It was so sudden, so unexpected, like a bullet in your back. And strangely, stupidly, he didn’t know what to do with himself.
He had long thought that he was a mere shell of a person, but he hadn’t truly felt hollow until now. First his mother, then his foster father, and now Bora and Ahulane. He didn’t blame anyone for not wanting him around, grouchy and monstrous thing that he was, but that did not make it hurt less. And it really did hurt. He couldn’t remember anything ever hurting this much before. He’d been lying in bed for the last two days, only getting up when he had to, snuggling Christie and trudging through a stack of some of his favourite crime novels. They didn’t help. It was really pathetic.
He had texted Taemin because he was the one friend who he thought might be able to somehow make him feel better. It had not really occurred to him until his friend’s unusually brief reply to his texts that the guy he had been dating (or something like that) had also left. Suddenly he felt awfully selfish for not considering that Taemin might have been hurting too. Add selfishness to the endless list of things that drove away everyone he ever cared about.
But it was too late to tell him not to come, so he just heaved himself out of bed and shuffled into the kitchen to see if he had any food, hands shoved into the pocket of the huge sweatshirt that had been his father’s.
