Healing

IX - help

Please, enjoy!

∞

      Jinyoung shuts his eyes so tight it hurts, he grabs his head in his hands and presses, as if like that he can contain and control the flashbacks, but all he feels is more pain. If he cannot see, he can hear: the collision, the screeching sound of the car against the pavement.

He can barely breathe, and it feels like sinking in dark waters, not knowing how to swim.

But someone grabs him, pulls him up. Jinyoung feels hands on his shoulders, shaking him a bit but not too strong, or at least strong enough to get him out of where he's lost himself.

"Hey, are you okay? Can you hear me?" someone asks, voice filled with worry but it sounds so distant.

Jinyoung feels hands on his face, wiping away tears.

"I told you he wasn't right!" the same person yells, clearly to someone else. "Hey, hey, it's going to be okay. Can you hear me?"

The young man cannot see yet, his eyes cannot focus but he can hear a bit. He tries to focus on that for now, clinging to those voices to escape the void.

"He's hyperventilating. What do you do when someone has a panic attack?" the one who is holding Jinyoung asks, voice frantic and scared.

"I don't know!" someone else answers, a voice a bit more distant and it's hard to understand what he says, it makes Jinyoung focus more and that helps. "Let me look it up."

"Hey, can you hear me? Nod if you do, please," the person holding him asks, and barely, Jinyoung nods. "Good, good. Focus on my voice, okay?"

"Try counting with him!" the other voice adds. "Slow and constant, that should help him control his breathing."

"Thanks," the other man replies. "Hey, count with me, okay? Even if it's in your mind and then try to count out loud, okay?" Jinyoung nods faintly. "One... two... three... four..."

Jinyoung counts in his head with the man, only focusing on the numbers. The other man counts to ten and starts again, and it's after the third round so Jinyoung can count out loud, too. By the fifth round he can see. By the sixth round Jinyoung is breathing more normally and looks up, actually seeing the people helping him. He is shocked to recognize the men that saved him from the oncoming delivery man, the same man that pulled him, smiling kindly at him.

"Are you better now?" he asks, Jinyoung can't remember his name, only his face. "Can you stand up?"

Jinyoung nods, and allows the man to help him to his feet. He feels weak and extremely tired, but he's escaped the darkness of the accident.

"Th-thank you," he mumbles, voice hoarse. The young man looks to the side and sees the same man that was with his rescuer; he is smiling as well, relieved.

"I noticed you weren't doing all right before. Sorry for following you," the man in front of him answers.

"He was so worried he persuaded me to turn around and try to find you," the other man explains. "I'm glad he did, though."

Jinyoung feels grateful, too; for being rescued. It had never happened to him like that, and he doesn't understand how a minor bicycle collision affected him like that. It wasn't similar to his accident in the slightest. Regardless, he's thankful those strangers were concerned about him, enough to look for him and help him when he was so hopeless.

In that second, as a brief thought, comes Jaebeom to his mind. Before he can even develop that thought, he shakes his head and instead focuses on thanking the men again, gathering all his strength to bow.