orange | yoonmin ✔️

chapter five.

|..jimin..|

Due to his regular sleep schedule that ended up with him waking up at six fifteen every morning, Jimin found himself sitting up in the darkness. Even in that pitch black, Jimin felt an unfamiliar sort of haze hanging in the air.

The blankets didn't feel right, for one.

And two, there was snoring beneath him, with a tight grip on his hand, somewhere beside the bed. Carefully, he took his hands out of the person's hold. He rubbed at his eyes, begging for it to adjust to the darkness faster, and shoved his hands into his sweater pockets.

Then he realized that he didn't wear a sweater yesterday, and it wasn't his. That meant he was at someone's house, holding someone's hand, in some stranger's bed, wearing a borrowed sweater. He swallowed. Did he do anything last night? He couldn't remember a single thing except for panic, which happened often.

And then he felt it. Creeping from the back of his mind, beginning to plague his consciousness, not unusual since it often happened when he felt a great deal of fear of unfamiliarity.

Jimin had a problem, and it wasn't just his lack of vocal expression.

Jimin had flashbacks.

It wasn't the casual daydreaming flashbacks one gets in the middle of a boring class, no, Jimin's put him into a state of mind where no one could reach him except for himself..and..him. But he was gone. So Jimin often found himself stuck in his own mind for hours, until his nightmares were over, but even then, he would cry and refuse any contact for periods of time that could go as long as days.

Black was Jimin's best worst friend.

The dark was always there for him, and was even there when Jimin didn't need it. Or even want it. The black void of his thoughts always had a hand out to him, and sometimes, it would swallow him up involuntarily.

This was one of those moments.

_____

"Jimin?"

Jimin opened his eyes in his mind, while he knew that in reality, his eyes were clamped shut. The familiar voice was back, like every time he entered his nightmares. The same scenario would play over again, unless someone woke him up.

No one had ever woken him up from this flashback.

A boy with a ball in his hands ran up towards Jimin, who was sitting on his porch, admiring the yellow-glazed sky. Everything was pretty in Jimin's hazy memories.

Before it all went to shit.

"Jimin! Do you want to go hang out?"

It was the voice of his best friend, yet Jimin never looked up to meet the boy's eyes.

"No."

"Come on, Jimin, don't be a loser." The familiar feeling of the ball colliding with his chest didn't shock him like it used to. Jimin palmed the ball, and tossed it back to the boy, never meeting his eyes. In some part of his mind, he knew what was going to happen next.

"Fine. But only because I'm your best friend and I love you."

His friend never got to learn that Jimin wasn't exaggerating.

Jimin's best friend was also his first love.

Slowly, he turned his head up, to see the wide grin of the beautiful boy, and he felt his gut clench. Everything was wrong. You should never like your best friend. That was crossing every line in the rulebook of friendships.