Passion Meets Fear | JiMina

E I G H T E E N

"You good? You good?" Taehyung asked Jimin worriedly as they, including Jungkook, arrived at Jimin's place.

"Yeah, guys," Jimin answered with a reassuring tone. "No worries, really. You two should drive home now. And be safe, traffic can be ridiculous at this hour."

"Just contact us if you're going to school tomorrow, all right?" Jimin nodded, afterwards receiving multiple pats on the shoulder before watching his two friends jog down the stairs from his house's entrance, wave at him, then hop inside the car and drive off.

After shutting the door, he plopped himself face first unto the sofa then heaved a deep, relieving sigh. He recalled the sequences that occurred to him that day, and a zap of shivers bolted within him. He was still, no matter how much his friends comforted him, embarrassed. And he just couldn't shake the feeling off, even if someone would force it. He imagined putting himself in those students' shoes, and almost immediately he felt much more flustered, because he, too, would most likely judge in secret.

A part of him didn't believe in the fact that he nearly pissed himself and fainted in front of passing students, since everything about it was truthfully petrifying. Humiliating.

He remembered when he got out of the clinic, he felt like fainting once again. A few meters away from the clinic stood the very Building C he dreaded so badly. Trying his best to cover his face and move away quickly from the place didn't really help either, since the first and second years were already dismissed minutes earlier. Some stared with pure interest, some grimaced—he thought that perhaps because they didn't see him as the top dancer no more—at the sight of him, and some gawked in delight; a few students, who happened to be the ones interested more in the embarrassing scene earlier than the actual accident months ago, had their keen eyes on him.

To say he was uncomfortable was an understatement. He didn't just want to be out of there, he also wanted to bury himself, dead or alive.

The rest of his time was spent sorrowing over his failure. He stayed under a purple-hued waiting shed, feeling isolated no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he was loved and cared for. His heart ached the whole time he waited awhile for his friends. Torn apart between the idea of being genuinely appreciated and the assumption of having burdened his friends instead, he sat there and stared at nothingness. His loathing for his apparent inability to make a visible progress in any aspect of healing was unmatched. Despite him having already moved on from the pain of his previous relationship's demise, he suddenly wished they didn't break up so the accident wouldn't have happened.

As soon he snapped out of his daze, he mentally curled himself into a ball. He thought of how many people had seen him looking pathetically miserable. And personally, he knew he looked dumb. Before he knew it, Jungkook and Taehyung already pulled up at the side of the street, signaling him to come inside. He stood up and, straight away, his knees were weakening by the second. Caught off guard, his breath hitched but he managed to compose himself and made himself look as respectable as possible. Although his injury had completely healed a couple months prior, he was limping (and trust him, he didn't make it so obvious) all the way to the car.

On their way to Jimin's place they were all mostly tight-lipped, though their silence made a quiet and peaceful ambience. Jungkook was busy gulping down a bottle of beer, intermittently remarking on whatever the view outside the window was. Out of the blue, he said something from the usual remarks that had Jimin frozen in thoughts.

"Hyung, I think you should seek help from a psychiatrist."

As he was sprawled face down on the couch, he thought about it even more. Telling his mother about this particular topic would freak her out, as she'd always been used to see him as this vibrant boy who was keen in achieving his goals no matter what happened. Jimin knew his mother would feel as though she was neglecting him, but really, there was nothing she could do in the first place either. It was an accident, an inevitable tragedy, one that Jimin ruled out as something that was supposed to happen to him. He actually did not know for what, but the event prior to his downfall made it crystal clear that he was bound to feebly stagger off the stage.