Boy By The Sea • taekook

Three

The paper is from the nurse, thin and lined, already a bit stained by the ink marks on his hand. And the surface of the bed is too soft and bumpy for drawing, the pencil sinking in sometimes, making the lines shakier than he would've preferred. Taehyung doesn't mind though. The sketch is taking shape, an ominous sculpted face with hollow shining eyes and hair of snakes entwined on dying branches. A bird spreads its wings on the forehead. Taehyung paid special attention to the wings, sketching each feather out carefully, smudging the edges with his finger for a sense of movement.

It's a copy of the book cover beside him, the title Demian resting right beneath the mythical face. Taehyung found it in the games room under a pile of old Harlequinn novels, and the cover spoke to him. He never got past the first two pages of the book, but the sketching turns out to be much more enjoyable. Therapeutic almost, numbing the mind better than all the medication he's received at rehab. But today is different, his thoughts are scattered, filled with random thoughts drifting in and out.

Mostly about him.

He comes once a week, usually on a Saturday afternoon, after the sun has finally reached the window to his bedroom, basking everything in warm wintery rays.

On those days, Taehyung would get a little stir crazy, thinking about ditching this whole rehab thing once and for all. Run back to the streets, never to see him again. The thought of freedom is reassuring, reminding him that he's not here against his will, but willingly, a benificiary to the kindness of a stranger.

Taehyung's hand twitches.

Bullshit.

There's no freedom. Choices in life are reserved for the privileged, not for people like him. He tried to leave a few times already, walking out when the front desk isn't paying attention, signaling to hitchhike down the road up front. But upstate New York is not an easy place to navigate, barely a few cars that would go by, usually just trucks distributing goods to the small towns sprinkled about the endless rolling hills. And the thought of going back to the city repulses him, even the hitchhiking car heading south makes him break into cold sweats. It was all a hellish haze - people with monstrous grins, and phantom pain slicing deeper than his flesh.

Taehyung rubs on his arm absently, feeling the tiny bumps of each scar and bruise. There's a blue pen sketch on his thin wrist, of the outline of a butterfly.

Not again, not for a while. In the end Taehyung always wanders back to the rehab, smiling at the staff sheepishly and collapsing into bed, luxuriating in falling asleep somewhere safe.

This won't last, you know - the voice pipes up in his head, matter of factly and to the point - he'll want something from you, or worse yet, he'll forget you. you'll be back on the street living off all your nasty tricks in no time.

Taehyung's hand slips and the pencil cuts a glaring line across the sketch.

Tsk tsk tsk, ruined it now.

Shut up. Whatever. "...don't need this place... fine back there -"

Taehyung snaps back, voice piercing through the silence in the room feebly. He throws the pencil away and pushes the paper to the side roughly. The need comes creeping back, crawling up his tense limbs, making him shiver. His hands dig into his hair, grasping and tangling, willing for the sensation to go away. But it looms over him, the craving for something numbing and overwhelming, to make the world disappear even just for a fleeting moment. It will always be a part of him, settled in a dark corner in his heart, wandering out at the first sight of vulnerability.

Fucking pathetic.

Just as he closes his eyes and curls up in bed, retracting into himself, a quiet knock on the door startles and gives him pause.