He used to have a puppy.

It was always with him, even in the darkest times of his life. It was permanent, it was the symbol of the circulation. It had fluffy, white fur and big doe eyes. The most innocent and beautiful pair of black eyes. Its paws were so tiny that he hardly believed that they were real but it could actually scratch him with them if it wanted to.

He first met the puppy when he was 12 years old. The little dog was just as lonely and lost as he was. That was the time when he realized that he had created a perfect bubble around him and didn’t notice when it started to get risky. Every single day, the same question was lingering around him and accompanied him wherever he went; when would it burst? It was only a matter of time.

He kept the puppy in secret. He didn’t want his family to know about the little creature. It was better this way. His father would have hurt it, just like he had done to everything that had happened to be in his way. It didn’t matter if it was a friend of his, his own daughter, his beloved wife or his naive son; he hurt whoever he could. He was a maniac of destroying, hurting, abusing.

Taehyung thought that everything was better than being at home. He started rooming around the streets, joining those gangs that he used to be afraid of and eventually got into trouble several times. Yet, it was still nothing compared to what he had got from his father. Those punches and that unbearable pain in his chest; the sound of the cracking bones; the screaming of his muscles from the beating; the wildly forming bloodspots on the floor. Those things all should have been a sign of his affection. His father should have loved him but he didn’t.

It was still better to be in pain because of someone you don’t know than someone who should take care of you and protect you from the wounds that they cause themselves. Lying helped to heal those wounds for a while.

“He would change, I’m certain of that. He will realize that he had hurt us. He will become a better person.” He used to console himself with those words and believed that it would actually happen. But the miracle didn’t happen. Not after the first 3 days, not after a week or two. Then, he didn’t even count it.

It might have been 4 years, he didn’t actually know. Still, it felt so much longer. The wounds never healed, nobody could find a way to help him. He was a little kid being thrown out to the wolves. He had to learn how to fight with them. How to fight with himself. How to protect him and his sanity. Because deep inside, he was afraid of only one thing; the void. He was afraid that he would feel empty and eventually lose his mind. He was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to control his thoughts and actions. His greatest enemy was his own mind. It was extremely difficult to fight it. There was no one who could protect him from his own self. Only the little puppy.

It was the only anchor that could still connect him to the shore. The dog could cheer him up because despite every hardship, it always ran to him at the end of the day and gave him hope. It was like the first ray of sunshine after a devastating storm. It was his only friend and the one who didn’t abandon him. At least, until that time.

“Name?”

The typing sounds of a keyboard. A grey room without windows. A man in his 50s. Two sweating palms. Countless screaming thoughts. A dry