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[|This chapter contains extreme self-doubt and depressing thoughts in the beginning, so it may be triggering. Proceed with caution|]

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Seriously, what are you doing? Do you think you can compete? Do you think you stand out for something? Do you think you can make it? But how? Come on... I don’t think you can. You’re characterless. You don’t have endurance. You don’t stand out.

“I didn’t make you stay because you were late. I made you stay because you’re not on the same level you were at the audition. Something changed. And it’s not your skills. Right now, you’re not good enough to be here. And it’s disappointing.”

“It was a little lacking, but good.”

You thought these words will motivate you to do better — that you would be able to achieve something. Maybe you even believed that, but look what happened. What happened to you. You’re nothing. Stop thinking you can stand out. You don’t stand out anywhere. You don’t have a future. How about giving up now that it’s still early?

But what will you do with your life? Not that, though. What’s the point, anyway? You will never be that good. You’ll be a mediocre dancer. If you’re able to finish the company. Do you think you can do better? You can’t. You don’t have what it takes. You don’t have anything.

You will never get recognition because you don’t deserve it. Seriously, you don’t deserve it. Accept it now. You will never get recognition, never and nowhere. I don’t know what else to say to you. Your efforts are going in vain. In vain.

At each sentence Jungkook wrote in his notebook, a gush of tears poured from his eyes, punctuated with quiet, gasping breaths.

Why do you have to suffer so much? Why do you have to doubt yourself so much? Why do you have to have so many insecurities? Where did your determination go? Where did your passion go?

Well, you still have some passion. Otherwise, you would have given up already, right? Obviously. Where did “dream big, start small” go? What happened to you? You don’t have the courage to fight. You just exist. You go to the company just because, right? Right.

Why do you seek pain? Why don’t you let the joy stay? Why do you have to ruin it? Why do others have to ruin it? You’re not that bad, though. No, you’re good. But you don’t stand out. You’re just not enough. Not good enough.

And you will see it in your next evaluation. And you will see it in your future too. If you don’t give up until then. You don’t have the courage to say, “Fuck them all. I will be the best. I will be the first in my class. But I won’t do it for them. I’ll do it for me. I can and I will.” You don’t have the courage to say that. And it’s sad.

You’re nothing. That’s what you are. Nobody will care about you if something happens to you. You’re all alone. You don’t mean anything to anyone. Nobody’s life will change if you disappear.

Why couldn’t you tell someone you wanted to give up? What were you afraid of? I can’t think of anything. What were you afraid of? Maybe that it would become real if you said it? You don’t want to do that for another three years. You’ll never be anything better, anyway.

And if you finish the company, what are you going to do? What are you doing with your life? You can’t do it, anyway. You just exist. You don’t live. And you’re alone in this. And you will be alone. You have to come to grips with it. You will live your miserable life until you meet someone who’s going to change it.

A knock on his door wrenched him out of his agonizing thoughts. He wiped his face with his sleeves in haste and tossed the notebook under the table. He drew in a deep breath meant to pacify him and stood in front of the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s me.” Taehyung frowned at the stillness that ensued. “Jungkook, I’m worried.” After another moment’s silence, the door opened and his heart ached at the sight he faced. He could identify a whirl of torturous emotions in Jungkook’s flooded with tears eyes; exhaustion, despondency, wretchedness, and his chest felt as if a million spikes punched it on repeat.

Jungkook was the first to break eye contact as his feelings overwhelmed him all over again, and he erupted into tears. Instantly, two caring arms swathed him in a warm embrace and clutched him. He buried his face into the crook of Taehyung’s neck and cried in earnest, his body shaking against him.

Taehyung brushed palliative patterns on his back as he shushed him softly. He cradled him as if he were the most precious being in the world, and Taehyung truly thought he was. He was so precious, and he didn’t deserve this sorrow.

Jungkook’s sobs quietened little by little, but he didn’t pull away. His hug contained the warmest and most soothing feeling he had experienced in a while, and he didn’t seem able to part from it. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“I’m crying in front of you. In your hug.”

Taehyung withdrew just enough to cup his cheek with a gentle palm. “Shut up.” His soft voice, with an inkling of teasing, stirred a subdued chuckle from Jungkook, and a grin exploded onto his lips at the sight.

They stood still, gazing at each other with a mutual fondness gleaming in their eyes. But the magical moment soon petered into an awkward one as they realized the position they were in. Both retreated at a creep and looked anywhere but the other.

“Shall we drink a beer?” Jungkook asked, already heading to the kitchen.

“Jungkook, it’s still the middle of the day. And we have vocal classes.”

“I’m not going back.”

Taehyung settled on the couch once Jungkook returned. “Why? What happened?”

Jungkook held onto his silence as he perched next to him. How could he just explain what happened? How was he supposed to start? What was he supposed to say?

“You don’t want to talk about it. I get it.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to... I just don’t know how to start.”

“Just say it how it is. It’s just me, Jungkook. I won’t tell anyone.”

Jungkook’s tearful eyes plunged to the table as a single phrase blustered through his head. His chest tightened as if a strap girdled it, and his stomach dropped. “I want to give up.”

Taehyung analyzed the unexpected statement in silence. “Why?”

“I’m in pain every day. I have a chronic injury. It’s peroneal tendinitis. There’s no cure. Nothing I can do to heal it.” A trickle of tears dripped down his cheeks, but he wiped them away. “I don’t want to be in pain anymore. It suffocates me. It breaks me. And it holds me back. I’m not as good as I can be because of that. And I can’t do it anymore.”

Taehyung wished with all his heart he could take all of his pain away, and his inability to do it made him feel useless. “I don’t think that’s the only reason, Kookie.”

“It’s a good enough reason, though.”

“But it’s not the main reason. You think you’re not good enough. You think you won’t make it. You doubt yourself and make yourself feel you don’t deserve anything good. You made it this far with that injury. Why did you come so far only to give up now? It’s because you really want this. You’re really desperate about it. Jihoon said today that a person who works hard can’t beat someone who’s desperate. And you know what? He’s fucking right. There’s always going to be someone who’s better than you in everything. That’s life. We discussed this a while back, remember?

“You should just be as good as you can and be something you’re proud of. If you give up now, do you think you will be proud of yourself? If you give up now, will you be able to say in forty years that you lived your life how you wanted? This is the thing you love to do the most. This is what you want to do. And you have a chance now to do it. To achieve it. But you’re doubting yourself so much that you can’t enjoy anything. And your injury makes it worse. When was the last time you were happy, Jungkook?”

Taehyung detected the outpouring of his tears escalated, and he slid closer to embrace his cheeks, drying the wetness with gentle thumbs. “To endure the pain, you need to trust yourself. When you feel that you didn’t do well, acknowledge it and try harder next time. But when you really do well, you should be able to acknowledge that too. You have to praise yourself too. Not only judge yourself.” His palm crawled down his arm in a comforting caress and rested over Jungkook’s hand.

“You had said if you don’t trust yourself, how do you expect others to trust you? It’s the same thing. If you don’t praise yourself sometimes, how do you expect others to praise you? If you don’t believe in yourself, how do you expect others to believe in you? Everything starts from you. From yourself. It’s the same with love, too. All these cliche things about you should love yourself first, they’re all true. It makes me so sad to see you like this.”

“Broken?”

Taehyung shook his head slowly. “Alienated. You’re not alone. And you can’t seem to realize that. You’re not alone, Jungkook. You’re not alone.” He tugged him into his hug, his lips hovering over his head. They planted a little kiss on it, something Taehyung didn’t have the power to prevent.

A tension filtered in Jungkook’s form at the feathery touch of his mouth, though he strove to secrete it. He heard a deep inhalation from Taehyung, and his brows drew together. “Did you just smell me?”

“Nope.” Taehyung pulled back and didn’t dare look at him.

Jungkook, though, scrutinized him. He thought it was about time Taehyung would say something like, “Don’t misunderstand,” or “It doesn’t mean anything,” or whatever, but to his immense surprise, he didn’t.

Taehyung risked a peek at the silence that overtook them and perceived his drilling stare. “What?”

“You won’t say anything?”

“Like?”

“I don’t know. Your usual sentence like to not misunderstand or whatever.”

“It’s not my usual sentence.”

“Okay,” Jungkook scoffed. “But you really won’t say anything?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Every time I said something like that, you got mad at me and now you’re asking why I’m not saying anything?”

“You have a point, but... but why?”

“Kook, stop overthinking everything.”

“But I want to know.”

“You don’t have to.”

“So there is a reason!” Jungkook exclaimed. “Tell me.”

“Because I wanted to do all these things,” Taehyung admitted in a muted tone, since he couldn’t dodge his questions anymore. “I wanted to hug you, kiss your head, inhale your scent, hold you, comfort you, make you feel better. I wanted...” He glimpsed at him to ascertain the absolute surprise Jungkook’s face probably had all over, and he sighed. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Like you’ll freak out again.”

“I’m not freaking out.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Thanks, though. Thank you for coming and for listening.”

“I just hope you’re better.”

“I think I am, for now.”

Taehyung erased from his mind everything he tossed off moments ago and offered him a small smile. “Will you come to the vocal classes?”

Jungkook took a moment to mull over it. His agony had subsided by a lot with the conversation he just had with Taehyung. His words remained engraved in his scarred heart, cocooning it in a blanket of comfort. They gave him enough courage to fight a bit more, and he would. “Yes.”

Taehyung’s lips formed a smile so bright, as if a glimmer of sunlight touched them.

. . .

The two boys went back to the company. Thankfully, Jungkook didn’t run into Eunhyuk or Jihoon. He didn’t want to see them yet. They finished their classes, and as planned, they went to Taehyung’s apartment. He narrated what the two teachers told him, and they bathed him in comforting words. Their love filled Jungkook with a warmth strong enough to alleviate a few more fragments of his pain, and he truly didn’t know how to thank them for being there.

Taehyung also talked about what Jihoon said to him. It still burdened his mind, and he knew it would for a long time. They resumed chatting about random things, but mostly, they drank. A lot. When it went after eleven, they decided to leave, since they had to wake up early the next day.

Jungkook was the last one to leave his apartment. Taehyung asked him countless times if he was okay and if he wanted to stay there, but the younger didn’t want to be a burden to him. He didn’t vocalize this thought since, of course, Taehyung would scold him. So he told him he preferred to go home, and Taehyung let him.

For some damn reason, Taehyung didn’t want him to leave. He wanted to keep talking to him, learn about him, just spend more time with him. Something changed for Taehyung. Not that day, but a little while back, actually. He felt something he couldn’t explain when he was with Jungkook. He had no idea what it was. But one thing he knew was it terrified him.

Jungkook, on the other hand, liked Taehyung since the day he met him. He’s ridiculously handsome. Anyone who doesn’t see that is blind. It was a thought Jungkook had very often. But he never pictured himself with Taehyung.

He always thought the older wouldn’t like someone like him. So whatever Taehyung did, he didn’t misunderstand it. Taehyung was perfectly clear the first day they met when he said, “Don’t misunderstand these things. They don’t mean anything.”

So when Taehyung hugged him out of the blue sometimes, he didn’t care about it. When he cared for him, Jungkook thought he was just being a good friend. When he waited for him every morning so they could go to the company together, he just thought Taehyung didn’t want to walk alone.

The whole week they went to the company together. After their classes, Taehyung suggested going to his apartment or Jungkook’s to hang out, and they did every day. Taehyung didn’t do all these things intentionally. He didn’t think about these things as flirting. He just wanted to be with Jungkook more and take care of him. He didn’t know why.

And Jungkook didn’t question any of these things. He was happy he was close with Taehyung. Closer than anyone else was. That was what he thought, at least. And he really enjoyed that. Making the older smile or laugh was like heaven to Jungkook. He was thrilled only to listen to his laugh, but he didn’t dwell on it much.

Jungkook was awkward around the two teachers after everything that happened, and he tried his best to avoid them. Even when Jihoon asked him if he wanted to talk, Jungkook declined. He didn’t know what to say to him. Eunhyuk didn’t talk or even glanced at him all week. And Jungkook couldn’t be happier about it.

He had decided to continue going to the company for now. He was still a bit unsure if he could endure it, but he chose to try it, at least.

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