the red crow (minsung)

one

~Minho PoV

It was hard to breathe. It was as if my windpipe was squeezing and didn't want me to be able to breathe in or out. Like someone was stuffing tissues in my mouth and holding my nose.

I tried to gasp for air but it was getting harder and harder. My chest tightened and a stabbing pain spread through it. I tried to stay calm and tried to do the breathing exercises I had been taught.

My eyelids closed and I focused only on myself and my breathing. I blocked out the stylists running around, the cameramen, my manager who was talking loudly on the phone, and the other actors. It was just me and my breath.

After a short while my lungs opened again and I was able to breathe in the stressful air. But the pain in my chest was still there.

"Minho, are you ready for the next scene?" one of the cameramen asked and just as I was about to answer when, Chan, my manager said: "No. We're missing something, we still have to find it."

He had turned his phone to the side to answer the cameramans question, but put it back on his ear and continued talking. It was as if he knew I was struggeling with pain right now, he looked at me with worry in his eyes.

But maybe it was just in my imagination.

I slowly got up from my chair and went to the bathroom in pain. With every step I took I could feel the pain getting worse, how everything was getting a little dizzy and I felt like I was about to collapse.

The water flowed into the sink and the sound was somehow pleasant to hear. I put my hands underneath and washed my face. Maybe that would take away the pain.

But nothing happened, the pain continued and my fresh makeup was destroyed.

I tried to keep breathing, to stay calm and sat on the floor next to the sink.

The tiles were cold on my thighs. So cold that i got goosebumbs all over my body.

I never felt so much pain in my chest, so I was starting to panic. Normally I was a person who is calm in such situations, but in that moment it felt like I was dying.

I grabbed my shirt where my heart was positioned and held on to it. Like I was begging my chest to stop hurting. I gritted my teeth and hoped it would stop soon. I had to go to the shoot, I couldn't keep them waiting any longer.

Suddenly the door opened and my limbs cramped. Nobody should see me like that. Nobody ever.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I heard Chan say, he looked at me on the floor and crouched down next to me. "Do you have breathing problems again?" I nodded, he didn't need to know that I felt more pain than usual.

"You should really see a doctor, I'm getting worried. And why are you hiding it from everyone?"

I snapped: "I don't need to see a doctor and I don't tell all the others because they would just annoy me and act like they care even if they don't."

The older one sighed and said, "I don't think they will just pretend to worry." I rolled my eyes and could feel the pain easing. "They are actors, they act so they always pretend," I said as I got up and walked towards the set with slight pain.

I could hear Chan following me with a sigh.

One of the stylists ran up to me, looked at my face and asked frantically, "What happened to your makeup?!"

I shrugged and he led me to one of the chairs in front of a mirror. He started to reapply the makeup and I just stared at my own self that I could see in the mirror.