You always find a way to get me high

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- Arrival -

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Something felt... off. Jungkook couldn't quite detect what it was, though. Something about his surroundings didn't feel the same, and that underlying thought that he kept pushing to the back of his mind wouldn't disappear. It didn't matter how hard he tried to forget it.

He noticed it yesterday when he returned from his night shift. When he unlocked the front door and stepped in, the house didn't feel as warm as it usually did. The tinge of liveliness it struggled to hold onto these past four months was finally gone, and like a candle blowing out, the darkness finally filled his vision.

It was all in his mind, he told himself. It had to be. It was just the exhaustion from working long shifts with little to no breaks. That was it. The exhaustion.

Yet as he sat upon the couch today, trying to pass the time that seemed to drag on, and on, and on, he couldn't shake off the uneasy feeling in his core. Even as he wrapped his slender fingers around the TV remote and played movie after movie, something felt off.

Given the incident that drastically altered Jungkook's life, nothing about these four months had been peaceful. In fact, it seemed to be far from it, but sitting on the couch now, perhaps it was peaceful. The silence that filled the house was... tranquil.

So, why did it feel different today? What happened in the span of one day?

He couldn't sit still. Not in the living room, not in his bedroom, and not in the kitchen. Wherever he wandered around in the house, aimlessly searching for something to do, the anxious feeling followed him. As if it was a shadow lurking in the darkness behind him.

It was like a pressure crawling up his spine, draping itself over his shoulders and clinging tightly. It didn't matter how much he attempted to shake it off, it wouldn't disappear.

"You're losing it," Jungkook whispered, forcing a bitter laugh to flee from his parted lips. His frantic eyes kept shifting over the kitchen, fingers tapping against the round dining table. Perhaps he was. Maybe the guilt was finally eating him alive.

It had been so easy to convince himself that it was his fault. Too easy, really. There was more he could have done; there was more he should have done. Yet he didn't. He didn't go that extra step. He didn't take that leap to do more.

His bottom lip wedged itself between his teeth, nervously peeling at the chapped skin. The pain was a reminder that he was still here when Taehyung wasn't. A haunting reminder that this was reality, even when every part of him couldn't accept it.

The churning in his stomach wouldn't disappear. It had been there all morning. Even as the day continued, turning into the early evening, the nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach hadn't vanished.

Something was off, but what? What was so different? Just two days ago, things were fine. The house felt... peaceful. It still felt like home.

Was that it? The home-like feeling had disappeared?

His head shook. No, no that wasn't it. It couldn't be. Home was... was wherever Taehyung was. Taehyung was here, at home, with him. He was just hidden behind the door, in his room, studying for the exams.

This was still home. It would always be home. As long... as long as Taehyung was here.

Another laugh forced its way out of his throat, slicing through the thick silence that surrounded him. The light above the round dining table flickered once, which was enough to snap his attention away from the kitchen window. The sound of light rain registered in his mind.

"You're going crazy, Jungkook," he told himself, balling his hands into tight fists. That was the only thing that made sense. He was losing his mind. Everything was in his head, right?

Like a weighted blanket, the antsy feeling draped over him, clinging to his skin. It had him fidgeting in his seat, tapping his fingers against the table, and bouncing his leg up and down nervously. His heart was like the thunder outside, loud and erratic.

He shoved the chair back as he stood, pressing his hands against the table to push himself up. It created a high-pitched screeching sound, shattering the silence and adding to the unsettling feeling in his core. The unsettling feeling he swallowed thickly.

"This... this is ridiculous," he laughed, shaking his head. His messy brown locks covered his forehead, brushing over his eyelids. "Can you believe this, Taehyung?"

It had been four and a half months, but he couldn't accept the facts, even as they faced him head on. Even if they laid themselves across the table and screamed at him, he still couldn't find it within himself to accept that Taehyung wasn't there, behind the door, in his own world.

For a moment, there was a trembling feeling that shot to the tips of his fingers. Almost like they twitched against the wood of the dining table. It was too quick to dwell on, but his gaze found his slender fingers momentarily.

He needed to do something, anything really. Thinking about the unsettling feeling in his core was driving him insane. He was going to lose his mind if he just sat in the dark, surrounded by the tapping of the rain against the window, and thought about the feeling in the pit of his stomach.

As Jungkook walked toward the living room, reaching for the light switch on the wall to turn off the kitchen light, a sense of dread filled him. It was small, but it was enough to slow his movements. Each step toward the couch was sluggish and indecisive.

When he sat down, falling into the plush cushions, he released a breath he wasn't quite aware he was holding in. It was slow and shallow, like it struggled to free itself from his windpipe.

The TV was off. Had he turned it off before he left the living room? He was certain he hadn't touched the remote at all, but maybe he was wrong. He hadn't been thinking properly anyway.

"Taehyung, did you turn off the TV?" He shouted, glancing down the hallway towards Taehyung's bedroom. At this hour, however, it was too dark to make anything out. All he could see was the dark hallway and the faint outline of the door at the end of it.

Staring at the darkness made him both enthralled and terrified. He couldn't see anything in the darkness ahead of him. Beyond the entrance to the hallway, there was nothing but pitch black. If he stared hard enough, and squinted to focus his eyes, he could barely make out the outlines of the door frames.

It took more effort than he thought to pry his attention away from the hallway. His entire body felt stiff and heavy, as if each movement cost him too much energy. Something about that hallway... it seemed weird.

It wasn't the same as the feeling in the pit of his stomach. Quite frankly, it felt worse. Even as he redirected his attention to the blank TV screen, slender fingers patting the couch cushions in a search for the remote, it was hard to keep his eyes from shifting back toward the hallway.

What had him so... entranced? Why was he wanting to look down that hallway again?

After patting the cushions for a few minutes, still unable to find the remote, Jungkook blinked away the thoughts, looking down at the couch. The remote was right next to him, wasn't it? So, where had it gone?

The remote wasn't there. He looked at the couch, shoved his hand between the cushions, and it still wasn't there. But if the remote wasn't on the couch, then... where was it?

The house was dark. After flipping the switch in the kitchen, the only source of light, which came from the light fixture above the table, had turned off. He was sitting in the darkness, trying to search for the damn remote he swore was next to him.

"I'm seriously losing it," he said aloud, standing up to turn on the standing lamp beside the TV.

When he checked again, the remote still wasn't anywhere to be seen. Between convincing himself that he was losing his mind and the uneasy feeling in his stomach, Jungkook abandoned the idea of watching TV all together.

His head shook again, allowing his messy hair to tickle his forehead. "I should just go to bed," he murmured weakly, clumsily turning off the standing lamp and awaiting the darkness that consumed the house.

Everything was off. Sure, he was exhausted. After working his seemingly never-ending shifts continuously, it was easy to assume that the exhaustion was affecting his head. It had to be... right?

But why was it now? He had been working the same jobs for months. He had been exhausted for nearly two months. Granted it's getting worse, but he hadn't felt like this until now. Seriously, what changed?

His head was all fuzzy, and to make matters worse, it felt like he was going to have a headache soon. Going to bed seemed like the best option, even if it was still early in the evening.

It wasn't until he was halfway down the dark hallway when he stopped in his tracks, feet suddenly feeling two times heavier than before. Why was he walking this way? His room was on the other side of the house.

But his mind couldn't process anything, not when he was engulfed in the darkness around him, frozen like a deer in headlights. He was staring ahead of him, at the outline of Taehyung's bedroom door. The outline he could barely see, even at this distance.

The feeling in his stomach multiplied as he stood there, simply staring at the door. His heart was hammering in his chest, beating so loud he could feel each individual thump in his ears.

Something was... wrong. Very wrong. He had stared at this door for hours some days, waiting for it to open and reveal his best friend, but that moment never came. He had spent so much time sitting on the couch, staring at the doorknob, waiting for it to twist open.

Now, as he stared through the darkness at the outline of the door, there was something else. A bigger feeling. A darker feeling. He couldn't push this one away because he felt it consume his entire being, wrapping around him so tight it felt suffocating.

He didn't know what it was. Dread? Fear? Uneasiness? Maybe it was a mixture of all three of those, but there was something.

Jungkook took a step back, feeling his fingers tremble against his sides, releasing a shallow breath from his parted lips. Something felt wrong about the darkness he was surrounded by. Something was...

When he reached the end of the hallway, his trembling fingers shifted over the wall, clumsily searching for the light switch. He flipped it in a hurry, squinting as the light flooded in.

No one was there.

Chills raced down his spine, shooting across his arms until they reached his fingertips. He felt the blood rush to his feet, making his knees nearly buckle. There was... there was no one there. Even with that heavy feeling weighing on him, suffocating him, there was no one standing at the end of the hallway.

And somehow that seemed worse than knowing there could potentially be someone there. Having such a heavy, unsettling feeling drape over him for... nothing. No one was there.

The chills had him shivering, as if the cold had busted through the closed windows, smacking into him with full force.

The uneasy feeling in his stomach was like a warning. Jungkook hurried from the hallway, walking past the kitchen and toward his bedroom. When he was in, he shut the door in a panic, leaning against it and breathing heavily.

Something was off about that hallway. He knew something was wrong.

But there was nothing there. There was nothing to visibly prove that something was wrong. Again, was it in his mind? Was he going insane?

A forced laugh fled his parted lips, but the humor was nonexistent. He was going insane. He was seeing things. Hell, he was feeling things that were just in his head.

He placed his hands to his head, sliding down the door until he was on the floor, knees pressing into his chest. God, he was going crazy. The thought had him laughing hysterically.

"Taehyung," he laughed, covering his ears, "I'm going crazy. Can you... can you believe that?"

He was shaking. His legs and his fingers couldn't stop trembling. Even when he stood to grab the doorknob, he struggled to maintain his balance.

A huge part of him believed everything was in his mind, that he was starting to feel things that didn't exist. A huge part of him kept convincing himself that he was crazy. There was no way something was off. After all this time, why now?

But there was a part of him, so small it was practically unnoticeable, that said he was right. Something was wrong. Something about the house was off.

However, he didn't pay attention to that sliver of reassurance. Jungkook focused on the majority that kept screaming he was just losing his mind. Maybe he was. Maybe everything was finally consuming him. Maybe the exhaustion had finally taken over him.

As he opened the door and peered down the house, all the way down the hallway at Taehyung's bedroom door, the uneasy feeling grew again. He could already feel the hairs on arms rising.

He shut the door with a slam, clicking the lock and gulping down the nervousness. He needed to go to sleep. That was it. He just needed to fall asleep and forget all about it.

So, he did. He laid down, eyeing the door every moment up until the sleepiness consumed him, forcing his eyelids closed.

A majority of him didn't want to believe something was wrong, but a sliver of him did. And deep in his gut, something told him that that sliver was right.

Whatever it was, it was enough to shake him to his core and make him feel vulnerable.

He slept with the hall light on that night.

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Is it all in Jungkook's head, or are things really happening in the house?

What would you do if you were in his situation?

We purple you💜

~Pisanthrophobia.