(JIKOOK) Texting Story Snippets

Breathe

He doesn't get it. He doesn't understand. Nobody does. They won't.

Jimin's eyes water in the cold. The breeze makes them sensitive, he's not crying. The tears that welled in his eyes before have finished their race. They're gone, but the weight of his heart hasn't changed. It's heavy in his chest. He can feel every beat of it, but not his fingers anymore. The cold night has numbed Jimin's body and he can feel the consequences of his actions already in the way his throat aches when he speaks and by a serious case of a runny nose. If he finds enough peace of mind to willingly rest before his body gives out and forces sleep upon him, he'll wake up with bad cold. He doesn't care.

"I don't want to hurt myself." Jimin mumbles, missing the warmth of Hoseok's hands on his knees. He shouldn't be saying hurtful things to him, not when Hoseok doesn't deserve any of his backlashed emotions. He's not angry with his friend. He's not even angry with Jungkook, because he expected worse from his boyfriend. He expected words of a final parting, but that part didn't come. Not yet.

Hoseok must be exhausted, staring up at the younger with confusion and frustration clashing in his expression. He looks eager to say something, but unsure of what he should. His eyelids are heavy, eyes blinking more frequently than they should be. He's tired and shivering.

"I told you to put on your hoodie. I don't need it."

Hoseok sighs, clouds of warm breath meeting the descending temperature rising above his head. "Sure." He whispers and reaches back for his hoodie he left on the ground behind him. His voice is muffled by its fabric as he slides its thin warmth back over his limbs. "What do you mean by saying that you don't care about being safe? You don't want to hurt yourself?"

Jimin nods, only encouraging another round of Hoseok's confused eyebrow lifts and careful stares with the motion. "I don't want to." Jimin answers vaguely. He already said that he didn't want to talk, but he got the other worked up into a worried frenzy on his account as it stands. His off handed comment about not caring about his own safety anymore raised red flags in Hoseok's mind, understandably. But, Hoseok doesn't get it, because he doesn't know how it feels to be Jimin. Hoseok doesn't know how it feels to break someone's heart with your own broken heart, to suffocate their trust in you because you can't trust yourself to face your own truth enough to tell them. Hoseok doesn't know how much it hurts to understand that what took the life out of your spirit didn't come from another's actions, but from your own failure to act. Jungkook didn't come back for him. A fast fleeting hope still flutters in Jimin's heart, but the doubt in his mind consumes it. Jungkook is already gone. The absence of knowing that he can fall into the man's arms to silence the screeching voices in his head rips him apart from the inside. It's gone. His silence, his comfort, his home. All gone.

"W-what do you mean then, about taking it out on yourself?"

Hoseok's quivering voice snaps Jimin back to his reality. One that's become just as tainted as what he wanted to forget. He doesn't want to hurt himself, Jimin just wants it all to end. His selfish escape from the memory of what happened, the memory of what was taken from him, has vanished. Facing this reality is worse than he imagined. Coming to understand what is real steals the breath from his lungs. Quite literally this time. He can't.. breathe.

He gasps in the chilly breeze of the winter night, choking softly on frosty air. His lungs don't accept it, they rebuke it. Jimin's eyes prick with frightened tears as they find Hoseok's staring up at him still, Hoseok's eyes immediately filling with panic. Panic. Jimin is panicking as he lays cold fingers gently on his chest and wonders if it's okay for him to lose his breath. If it's okay, why is he scared now? Concerned hands grip Jimin's shoulders, gently shaking him. Hoseok stands up and leans closer to his face, maintaining eye contact as he tries to figure out the severity of what's occurring before him.

"What is it?" Hoseok whines, afraid. His head shakes, disbelief fighting the fear in his stare. "B-breathe Jimin. Can't you breathe?"

Jimin doesn't move. He doesn't answer, not even with movement. His lips part, wider, wider. His eyes grow larger, and it's bewildering to him how quickly the inability to intake air into his lungs can alter his perspective. I don't want to die. Thoughts battle inside his head. I want to stop feeling. I want to stop trying. It's hard. He can't make them stop, the voices are screaming. I want to breathe.

It hurts not to breathe. He can feel his lungs collapsing and his hearing is impaired. Hoseok is muffled in front of him, muttering, no screaming words that surround him. "Hey, look at me!" Jimin is looking at him, isn't he? "Breathe. Focus on me, you're okay, Chim!" Thoughts clouded, vision slipping, Jimin pads his chilly fingers against the base of his throat. His heart is pounding now, smashing against his ribs. Every extension of his limbs, fingers and toes, are tingling. Hoseok whispers next to his ear, close to him. "In and out, breathe." He can suddenly smell Taehyung's scent on his best friends neck, that expensive Cologne Taehyung couldn't stop talking about when his dad gifted it to him for improving his grades. It's comforting, somehow, the fragrance. His mind distracted by its pull, traveling back in time and imagining their smiling faces full of affection and trust for one another, he cries. Jimin can smell it, the perfume. It's soft undertone of something sweet perfectly balanced with musky notes soothes his senses. The frigid breeze coats the walls of Jimin's lungs in a sheet of ice cold realization that he's breathing. Shallow breaths soon turn into deeper gasps for air before Hoseok can hear it.

It's quiet when the older pulls away slightly to make sure Jimin is coming down from what he can only explain as an attack of Jimin's mind, overwhelmed by something of the unknown. A panic attack? Hoseok cringes at the thought of that, but he's pretty sure that's what just happened. Frustrated for being so lost, so confused, so incapable of helping his best friend manage whatever is making him suffer so much, Hoseok groans. He falls back down onto his knees, forcing Jimin's hands inside of his own. "Are you okay?" He asks, not intending on hearing an answer to the question. He doesn't need affirmation for it, because if Jimin answered yes, it would be a lie. He doesn't want to hear denial either, because it was terrifying enough already to witness what he just did. Jimin is crushed under the weight of something invisible to an outsiders eye. Taehyung was right, too right. Jimin is hiding something dark and Jungkook knows what it is.

Recognizing this doesn't bring understanding. Hoseok can't come to terms with the fact that Jungkook just.. didn't care. He didn't care about Jimin. He left him. He can't find an excuse for that kind of action against the boy in front of him with tears in his eyes and quivering lips. Nothing makes sense, nothing brings about forgiveness to his mind.

Jungkook should be here with Jimin, reaching up to swipe away fallen tears and squeezing warmth into the smaller boys frozen hands. Jimin shouldn't be losing his breath, scared of the thoughts in his head. Jimin doesn't deserve this.

-///-

A/N: Jimin deserves only good things TT..