Earphones• Vkook

11

Taehyung walks into a very tall building. When he gets inside he goes towards the silver elevator, clicks the up button and waits until the doors open, no-one inside he walks in and clicks the button he needs and watches as the number is the one he needs, once he is on the third floor.

He signs in on the white paper at the front desk and waits in the waiting room. He looks around the room around him are a bunch of chairs, and like every doctor type place theres a kids corner, where a little boy is playing with some toy cars that are lighting up, making loud sounds that Taehyung, and the little boy can't hear. Lots of books and toys are scattered on the floor surrounding him.

The boys mother sits besides the area where her kid is playing soon a lady comes in the room with a clipboard and says the name out loud the mother puts down the news paper she's reading and taps on the table the boy is playing on, he looks at her and she signs that its time for him to go in. From that small interaction is clear the mother is hearing while her son is deaf.

Taehyung realizes that the boy is deaf. He's sitting there legs pressed against eachother, closed, stiff, he starts to cry slowly.

"He's never going to know what it's like, he's never heard laughing, talking, music, he's never heard a bird chirping, he's never heard beautiful singing voices, he's never heard anything" Taehyung thinks and the tears start coming out more. He feels bad for the boy who he doesn't even know personally who has been deaf since birth. Taehyung was able to hear once and he never realized how much it was something he enjoyed until now. But theres nothing wrong with being deaf, while Taehyung is over reacting knowing things he has lost he doesn't seem to realize those born deaf haven't lost anything since they never did once hear. It's normal to them.

He sucks up all the tears he can and sits there alone in the waiting room. Waiting for his name to be called, well signed, or someone tapping his shoulder and wave him by so he can go sit in another chair in a different room, to get his ears checked, like there actually was a chance of someone who cant hear, to hear even less.

A few minutes later someone taps his shoulder, a the lady, wearing a long white lab coat signs his name, in the form of a question. He nods yes and gets up to follow her to some other room, room number ten to be exact, she signs telling him to wait in there and someone would come in to see him soon.

With his level of sign language all he got out of that was, "Wait here, someone soon" but he filled in the blanks himself. He sits in the chair thats facing a desk, that has a laptop on top of it and an even better chair then the one he is currently sat in on the other side.

The room is white with one painting of Purple flowers on the wall facing him. A few minutes later a lady sits down on the other side of the desk. He met her once before, when his mom signed him up to be a member of this place.

"You, like lip reading better right?" She asked just to make sure

"Yes, its easier" Taehyung says

"first we are going to test your hearing"

You're giving me false hope that one day i'll get some of it back, he thinks to himself.

She puts headphones on him, the big ones DJ's use. He moves them comfortably on his ears and waits. She clicks a lot of buttons looking for his reactions, not even asking if he can hear. He doesn't hear anything but silence.

She motions for him to take them off and he gives them to her, usually for tests like this they would place you in a box and talk instructions to you, but since he cant hear to start with they knew it might not be worth it, which it wasn't.

"So, are you going next door tomorrow?" She asks and he nods, next door, technically a building attached to this one, is a place where they will just focus on teaching him more sign language. Here they just check in with his ears, find out ways they could possibly help, maybe even do some tests here and there to find out the deeper meaning of why his hearing just went away.

"How are you feeling?" She questions

"I'm fine" Taehyung says

"are you hearing any ringing sounds?" these questions depressed him since he can't hear anything.

"nope" he said almost annoyed.

"It must be hard, but we need to run tests every once in a while and figure out how we can help you" she says

If you can....you can't help me, it's gone, you can't even help that kid, he looks like he was born deaf, Taehyung thinks to himself thinking there is no hope for anyone to regain hearing.

"We need to focus all our attention on helping you readjust to everything all over again, it must be hard"

You're not even deaf how could you help me

"I'm your doctor, please say something so I can help you"

Help yourself.

"you still not talking to anyone? No friends"

"I made friends" Taehyung says instantly, defensive and standing his ground.

"Jungkook, he's a classmate of mine, and Jin he's my mothers friend's son" Taehyung explains himself.

"so you ended up going to a deaf school?" All he got from that was 'you, deaf school?' She talks to slow for him to understand what she is saying, she's talking too slow making him get lost in the words and not want to pay attention, can't people just talk normally around me.

"A hearing, do you see any deaf schools around here?" that came out harsh, "Sorry" Taehyung mumbles.

"hearing, so you're open about being deaf?"

How does that even make sense? Just because I go to a hearing school doesn't mean I'm open about how I'm deaf, "No, can you please speak normally, you're talking too slow" he speaks up, not being able to handle the next ten minutes of trying to figure out what she is saying and pay extra attention.

"I'm sorry, not many of my patients like to read lips, most of them like to sign"

Thats all I am to you, a patient, money is all I am, I don't even want to come here and get stupid tests done and talk about my feelings. My feelings are mine for a reason. I don't need to express them to a lady who sees me as dollar signs. Taehyung shifts in his seat not being able to sit still.

For ten minutes they sat in silence, "I hope next time we can talk more, don't forget to go to that class tomorrow"

This is how I'm going to spend my weekends from now on, going into ear doctor/psychologist lady, and then I go to a sign language, deaf person realignment class. I don't need to change to fit in and live my life, the world should change, Taehyung thinks out of anger.

Taehyung walks out of the doctors office and doesn't even bother putting in his earphones, his first time alone in public with no earphones in. he grips them in his left jean pocket, his hand in a fist the earphones digging uncomfortably in his hand.

Like an angry mad man, Taehyung walks down the sidewalks, black and yellow stripped long sleeved shirt and light blue jeans. His facial expression a mixed of anger and sadness.

Whats wrong with this world, whats wrong with me, why did I lose my hearing, it was fine then it wasn't. He feels tears coming down his face for the second time today.

Jin is inside the shop cleaning the outside window, trying to take away the mysterious handprints and fingerprints that make their way onto the window when he sees no-one touching them. He sees Taehyung's reflection and turns around shocked to see it is actually him. Still holding the rag he rushes over to taehyung who has picked up his walking pace, he grabs onto his arm, Taehyung looks at him, with a glare and tears going down his face. The glare slowly going away as he realizes the blonde haired boy in front of him is a friend, not a stranger.

"Hey, calm down, whats wrong" Jin signs

"I don't want to sign" Taehyung says bluntly hating the fact that maybe the easiest form for him to communicate for the rest of his life.

"That's okay" Jin says and still holding onto Taehyung's arm he takes him away from the crowded streets and into the restaurant, they pass tables filled with people and Jin takes him into the back room where there are magazines all over the floor.

"Gotta get Hyungwon to clean up his music magazine obsession" Jin mumbles moving all the magazines and putting them into a neat pile.

"Whats wrong?" Jin asks and Taehyung, looks at him blankly, his cheeks stained with tears.

He isn't even looking at Jin's lips so he missed the question, he's looking into Jin's eyes.

He didn't tell the doctor, why would be tell Jin.