A sleepless night was what made her take the first one.

She tosses and turns, stuck in the pit of her anxieties. She questions all the decisions she has made in this lifetime, and wonders if she is following the right path.

She doesn’t think she is.

She reached for her phone, bracing her eyes for the brightness: 3 am. She sighs and tosses the phone back onto her nightstand. Another thing to worry about, she thought. Another night without sleep.

Desperate, she got up from her bed, padding the carpet gently towards the medicine cabinet. She’s not the type to turn to meds for help, but she can no longer stand the suffocation of her mind. After a little searching, she felt her hand graze the long forgotten box in the back of the cabinet-- sleeping pills.

With a slight hesitation, she opened the box and took a pill out of its packaging. She popped it into then stepped back to the comforts of her bed. In the moments before the pill took effect and drifted her off to sleep, a thought occurred in her mind.

If only I could escape this mediocre life, this depressing world…

She opened her eyes.

It took her a moment to register her surroundings. A purple sky. This was not her bed. Nor her room. A shocked realization dawned upon her and she quickly scrambled to her feet with fear.

“Y/N.”

A voice that sounds so familiar but she swears she has never heard of made her turn around. Her eyes widen as she found herself looking into the gaze of no other than Kim Taehyung.

Ever since she first stumbled across BTS, she has fell head over heels in love with Kim Taehyung. His soulful dark chocolate eyes, that infamous box smile, and the air of wise innocence all enraptured her.

Yet he’s here. In her dream.

Is this a dream?

“Taehyung?” she said timidly.
“Yes.”

“Where are we?”

A magical square grin appeared as he spread his arms out, reveling at the swirl of violet and orange above them.

“Where ever you want us to be.”

She took the time to familiarize their surroundings. A beautiful sunset surrounded by strands of wispy clouds. A grass-covered plain, swishing gently with the wind. She instantly felt more relaxed, yet another question tugged at her conscience.

“But why are you here?”

Another radiant smile.

“Where else would I be?”

She began to smile back.

 

An excited anticipation was what made her took the second.

She spent all day in disbelief, smiling to herself every time she remembered their short meeting the prior night. She floated through the day’s tasks with a singsong voice and bright aura that left others confounded by her change in demeanor. Gone was the lethargic, frail appearance that looks like she just might collapse with every step. It was replaced with a bounce in her steps and a relentless energy.

That night, she approached her bed with joy rather than the usual dread. She automatically reached for the new addition to her nightstand, the box of sleeping pills, eager to enter the dreamland again. Her patience did not go unawarded.

 This time that she opened her eyes, it was her who found Taehyung first.

“Taehyung!”
He turned around and grinned at the figure running towards him.

“Y/N! I love where you’ve brought us this time!”

They shared a quick embrace on the warm sand, ears filled with the exhilarating sound of the lapping waves. It was a beautiful sunny day, swept by a wonderful sea breeze that ruffled their hair as they ran around on the beach. They spent their time together splashing around in the icy water, challenging each other to build the best sandcastle, and simply lounging together under the bright rays.

“Taehyung?” she said suddenly, sitting up to look at him.

“Hmm?” he responded, eyes still closed, hands propped beneath his head.

“Why are we here? What is it that brings us together?”

He went silent for a moment, before sitting up too and looking at her with a sincerity in his warm, hazelnut coffee eyes.

“I truly don’t know, Y/N. I just know that whatever it is, it gave me the pleasure to be here with you.”

A satisfied smile stayed on her lips as they settled back down, continuing to bask in the radiant sun.

 

A numbing trepidation was what made her take the third.

Despite Taehyung’s heartwarming confession the night before, an unquenchable curiosity continued to nag at her.

Why were they there? What was the reason? And better yet, how?

That night, she reached again instinctively towards the box of sleeping pills. But this time, her hand stopped before opening the package.

What if… I don’t take the pill?

What happens?

She mulled over the idea, spending a few moments deep in thought. Then, she set her hand down and turned over in her bed and closed her eyes, searching for a dreamland that she wasn’t sure she could find.

She didn’t find it.

Instead, she found agony.

Gasping, she woke up with cold sweat on her forehead, still frightened by an indescribable nightmare. She quickly fumbled the items on her nightstand in the dark, searching for one thing only. When her fingers enclosed the box, she threw a pill in and swallowed quickly before falling back in bed, near tears as she waits to reach dreamland again.

“Taehyung! Where are you?”

She was in a dark forest this time. She turned her head around frantically, desperate to find the only one who gives her comfort. She began to run blindly.

“Taehyung!”
She bursts out of the forest to find herself at a cliff with a night sky blanketed with stars. Taehyung stood there, turning around with confusion and surprise just in time to catch her sobbing figure in his arms.

“Y/N? What’s wrong?” he asked, alarmed, while continuing to tighten his embrace.

“I-it wasn’t you,” she sobbed, mumbling incoherent words into his chest.

There was nothing he could do but her hair and wait for her to calm down.

“I had a nightmare,” she said quietly, few minutes after she was finally able to stop trembling and relax in Taehyung’s warm embrace. “It was…. Absolute torment. I was screaming because it felt as if my entire body was on set on the fires of hell, and you, you…”

Suddenly, he pulled her out of his embrace to look into her eyes. “Y/N.”

“Y-yes?”

“I’m here.”

As soon as he finished his sentence, he pulled her in again, but this time, their lips embraced as well, making sparks fly and euphoria to surge through her mind.

She leaned into him, deepening their kiss. She marveled at his soft and plush lips, reaching up to run her fingers through his silky, bright red strands. They pulled away from each other for a second to stare into each other’s eyes with a passionate intensity. Then they continued, drinking in each other with their mouths and their touch, unable to get enough of each other. That night, the stars above them witnessed the explosion of the love as stunning as a falling meteor, piercing through the dark night.

--

It’s been a week.

A week since she was able to see Taehyung. A week since she experienced the feeling of fireworks in her heart. A week since she was… happy.

She had taken the pill every one of these long seven nights to no avail. Instead, she continued to be tormented by the nightmares she encountered before, making her dread the hours of the night once again.

People around her took notice as well. Her eyes no longer shine, they’ve become muted and lackluster. The spring in her step slowed to a drag. Her healthy complexion turned pail. She ceased to look—alive.

That night, as she slowly made her way towards her bed again, she paused. Her eyes fell upon the box of sleeping pills sitting on her night stand. She grabbed the box, rattling it and turning it upside down to count all the remaining pills falling into her palm. Only—

It was empty.

A fear began to grown within her, and she could feel her lungs constricting in panic. No, no, this can’t be true, I can’t…

She walked quickly towards her medicine cabinet, pulling all its content out with a fevered look. She needed the medication now more than ever, it’s been too long since… since…

Out rolls an entire bottle of sleeping pills, just at a much lower dosage.

She sighed with obvious disappointment, but still picked up the bottle, and started walking towards her bathroom for some water.

Yet her appearance in the mirror made her stop in her tracks.

She looked just as sick as people been observing. There was a fragility in her appearance that seemed to make her capable of crumbling into microscope pigments of dust. Her hand reached up to touch her ashy, sunken cheeks.

Have I always looked this way?

She thought back to her bursting vitality when she first met Taehyung in her dreams. Now, she was the display of someone near the end of their lives.

A shell of a soul who used to exist.

She looked down at the bottle of pills in her hand.

How many does she have to take to see Taehyung again?

She no longer cared for her education, her career, her family, her friends. Her entire life. All she wanted and needed was someone so unreachable, ephemeral.

Taehyung.

Taehyung.

Taehyung.

She began to pour the pills out of the bottle. One, two, five, ten, twenty. With glassy bloodshot eyes, she began to take them all, one at a time, with a glazed over vacant expression.

Soon I’ll get to see Taehyung again. Just another one.

The pills in the bottle seemed to have all disappeared into thin air. She let the bottle slip from her hands, oblivious to its clatter onto the floor. She swayed towards her bed. She fell back onto the mattress, looking up at the blank ceiling one last time before slowly closing her eyes.

It was a gentle desperation that made her take the last.

--

She opened her eyes. She’s in an immense white space this time, surrounded by everything and nothing.

“You’re here.”

She blinked and found herself looking into the face of one Kim Taehyung, leaning over her with an emerging grin.

She smiled as well.

“Yes, I’m here.”