The starch white walls seem to close in on the young man squirming in his chair, his eyes blinking rapidly against the glare of the bright lights illuminating the room in ethereal hues.
"I'm trying to help you, darling." The soft voice belongs to the psychiatrist seated across from him, her brown hair hanging limply over her slender frame. The tag pinned to her coat reads Jang Eun Ho and she smiles at him in a way which makes him sick. "But this won't work unless you tell me how you feel."
He sidles his head, his eyes affixing themselves on the Van Gogh painting adorning the otherwise bare wall. Kim Taehyung would have liked it. Like he once liked him.
"I have nothing to say," he says slowly, refusing to meet the sympathetic gaze of Dr. Jang.
She shakes her head sadly, a half smile on her pretty face. What would it look like with her skull bashed in?
"I know you've been through hell. But I can't help you unless you talk to me," she prods, tucking a stray strand behind her ear.
And he wonders what the point of all this is. Because he is beyond saving. He doesn't deserve Dr. Jang's kindness.
"You can't help me. It's too late for that," he replies curtly, his head lowering and his eyes scanning the cuts on his wrists, the scars on his pale skin. He can't bear to register the considerate smile on the doctor's face because it hurts. Because it reminds him too much of a girl who smiled at him like that once.
He wonders if Kim Miran will ever forgive him.
Or if she even cares.
Dr. Jang looks puzzled by his reply. "And why not? Why can't you be helped?"
He finally raises his head, and he wonders if the pretty doctor can hear his palpitating heart. If she can see the beads of sweat sliding down his forehead. If she can sense the guilt permeating his very bones.
"Because I have blood on my hands. And I don't know how to wash it off."