Perpetual Rain ✓

Jimin

"Jimin was an aspiring singer and skilled dancer." Taehyung explained as he stared out into the empty sky. "He had ambitions greater than anything I'd ever seen, and the drive to back it up." His breath left him in soft chuckles as he recalled fond memories of his friend. "We grew up together, having found each other in elementary school." 

You let your fingers stroke against the back of Taehyung's palm, your head tilted in his direction as you offered up your undivided attention, even if he couldn't bring himself to meet your eyes at that moment. 

"He was kind, he put everyone above himself." Taehyung scuffed, hanging his head a bit lower as he added: "Because of that, he suffered so much." His fingers curled a bit tighter around your hand, struggling to keep himself talking but you could see it in his dark topaz eyes that he wanted to tell you. He wanted you to understand. 

"Halfway through high-school, he got sick... really sick." Taehyung swallowed the lump in his throat as he tried to force the words out. The pain you could almost see radiating off his tanned skin sent a shock wave to your heart that threatened to shatter it. "The doctors told him, he only had a few years left to live. If he was lucky." 

"Oh my god..." You whispered, feeling your heart sink to your stomach. 

"Each month he got worse, soon enough he couldn't even leave the hospital." Taehyung took in a deep breath, his broad chest expanding as he forced down emotions that threatened to burst the damn he had walled around his heart. "We finished high school together. I brought him his work every day after school. I made sure that we graduated together, I planned to flunk senior year if he didn't past. No matter what I had to do." 

You breathed out a humorless laugh at his determination to stay close to his friend, his best friend. Shifting in your seat upon the beach, you turned to face him completely, instead of facing the sea and keeping your head in his direction. You wanted to project that you were listening, that you were there for him. 

"He got sicker after graduation. He kept slipping in and out of comas that would sometime last for weeks at a time. The doctors said the same thing 'There's nothing we can do.' and 'We just have to wait'." Taehyung clenched his jaw and bared his teeth. He spoke his next phrase in mumbles, barely audible but you listened carefully. "They were telling us to wait for him to die." 

His head fell down, taking in shallow and deep breaths, struggling to keep his composure. You raised your free hand up, placing it upon his shoulder as you rubbed at his skin through the towel. Your eyes reflexed the sorrow you felt for him, for his friend. After meeting Jimin you'd have never thought that he went through something this traumatic, his beaming smile and upbeat demeanor. He was happiness with legs. 

"He got better before my nineteenth birthday, I wanted to spend the day with him even if he wasn't able to leave the hospital. He insisted I go out with friends, that I have a good time. He made me promise." Taehyung's grip on your hand was becoming tighter and tighter, almost painful but you refused to let go or pull away. "I went out that weekend and I..." He choked on his words. 

You let your hand glide to his back, rubbing it in soothing circles as you already knew that part of the story. You tried to tell him he didn't have to go over it again, not if he didn't want to. But, he was so fragile, you worried speaking right now might cause the soul before you to shatter to pieces. He was baring more than just his emotions to you. 

"Jimin blamed himself for my death. He made me promise him that I'd go out and... I didn't come back." Taehyung raised his eyes up to the sky again, you could see the glimmer of moisture that had fallen from his eye lips, when you couldn't see his face clearly he had let his tears escape. "He got worse, and there was nothing I could do besides watch him silently from his hospital room. I was still watching him die."