a boy, no older than twenty yet no younger than eighteen, made his way into the cafe, lips sealed tight and eyes dull.

dark brown hair covered his eyes and shadowed over his features like an eclipse. his lips were pink and slightly jutted forward, and he had sharp features overall, not at all contrasting to the prominent angles of his thin frame. he walked slowly, feet dragging across the floor with a sort of heaviness, and he carried his arms by his sides, occasionally slipping his hands into his pockets.

his name was kim taehyung.

he ordered a small coffee, black, and sat down at a table in the corner, holding the drink with his left hand and holding a cigarette in his right. the cigarette wasn't lit and he didn't put it in between his lips. it was merely an empty, vacant and soulless reminder of someone he had once known and loved, and someone who had once loved him.

he was tired, exhausted even, because he hadn't been able to sleep the night before. he had woken up an hour into the night with a sudden need to vomit, and he had sat curled up in the bathroom for two hours throwing up what felt like his very soul into the toilet. he found it funny how it only hurt when it wasn't on purpose.

coming to the cafe had become a routine for him; every other day, before work, he would come and get a black coffee before sitting down at a small table and looking out the window until noon.

then, he would go to work and go through the rest of his day.

there were three people who were always there at the cafe, one being yoongi, who taehyung had spoken with only once in the course of the year he had been a regular at the cafe. there was another one who was the person who took orders at the counter; he was bright and bubbly, and taehyung had come to know him as hoseok. the third was a tall, lanky twenty year old named namjoon who had deep dimples and a bright smile.

other employees came and went occasionally, but the cafe didn't need that much help, being so small and isolated.

taehyung looked at the clock: 11:45. he had to get going.

he took the coffee and left the cafe.

* * *

taehyung walked briskly to the diner where he worked.

his shifts always tended to overlap with the shifts of three other boys, who he had slowly become close friends with.

as always, all three were there when he walked in, jimin and jungkook at the counter and seokjin in the kitchen.

"tae, what's up?" jungkook said. "you look exhausted."

"couldn't sleep last night," taehyung answered, briefly. "it's a long story."

he stepped into the kitchen where seokjin was already washing dishes.

seokjin, who taehyung often called jin, had a lively and loving personality. he had striking features and broad shoulders.

"i can do the dishes now," taehyung said. "they need help waiting tables, and i'm not all that good at that." he laughed a bit, slightly bitterly. seokjin seemed to notice.

he stepped aside as taehyung took over. he didn't roll up his sleeves.

"your sleeves," seokjin commented. "you should roll them up; they're going to get all wet."

"it's okay. i'll be careful."

you can't see my scars.

you'll think i'm broken.

white lies.

seokjin nodded slowly, obviously a bit suspicious, but he left anyways.

* * *

taehyung went back home that night and got straight into bed.

he didn't have half the energy he needed to take a shower, and he didn't quite have the appetite for dinner. he soon found, to his dismay, that he couldn't sleep either, so he laid in bed staring at the dark ceiling with nothing else to do.

he reached into the pocket of his jeans and found another old cigarette.

he watched the silhouette of his hand as he rolled it between his fingers, able to smell the scent of thick cigarette smoke in a cramped apartment all over again.

mommy, why do you smoke?

filthy child, you'd never understand.

he could remember every detail on her face, even now as a grown nineteen year old.

it's to wash away my sins. my sins are black, and the smoke takes them away.

her sins. taehyung could list her sins from one to one hundred, two hundred. she had told him what her sins were over and over and over again since he was a child.

what are your sins, mommy?

living, marrying the scum that your father was, having a child... those are my sins.

taehyung remembered the vast array of scars and cuts on her wrists. his wrists now matched hers.

"like mother, like son," he muttered.

she had taught him.

when she had killed herself on their bathroom floor with pills and a kitchen knife, leaving a sixteen year old taehyung to find her dead, she had taught him how to survive. he had seen the slashes across her wrists atop the horizontal scars that marred her skin. he had learned from her that those kept you living, just for a bit.

eventually, he supposed, it wasn't enough for her. he wondered when that day would come for him.

her death had set everything off.

that was when everything unraveled into a mess of strings and helpless cries. he had held her cold body in his arms as he called the police.

my mom killed herself!

she killed herself!

his stomach lurched as he thought back to the coldness of her skin. the blood didn't phase him anymore, nor did the image of her starved body composed of protruding bones and thin skin; that was what he saw in the mirror everyday now. that didn't phase him one bit. it was her corpse that still haunted him, and it was the cigarettes too. she had been holding a cigarette when she died.

he looked at the cigarette again, unlit but still lethal in that it brought back vivid memories of death and what he had been told was love. the room's darkness only reminded him of the darkness he had seen in his mother for the sixteen years he had lived with her.

she had told him that she loved him, but those were empty words, void of anything but a voice and syllables uttered to lie. she had hated him, and taehyung knew it.

a/n:
this might be the darkest first chapter ive ever writteN hahaha.

obviously this story's super angsty and a little bit on the darker side --- updates might be a bit slow while i really get into the story.

thanks for reading!