Burnout ⊗ Jeongchan

①② Breathe

Forewarning: This chapter includes detailings of a panic attack. My biggest worry about this chapter is readers will misunderstand my intentions so please understand I am not trying to romanticize panic attacks and/or similar conditions.

Sorry before:(

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Jeongin balanced himself against the bathroom sink.

When did he end up in here? It must have been some time after his Mother tried to murder him with glares and before he pardoned himself from the table.

What was he doing in here? Jeongin didn't know either. Hiding seemed like the most logical answer, a chance to get away from those people. All of them.

How long has he been standing here? His hand twitched. They had been laying in the bowl of the sink, limp under the faucet but the nerves had become desensitized to the cold.

His tie was starting to bug him.

Jeongin finally removed his hands from the running tap, digging his palms into his eyes in an attempt to wake himself back up, or ground him back from the mild pain lingering in his head. The prospect of going back to that table amplified the growing headache. The situations that could happen, the lectures he could receive, the trouble he would have caused. All because he couldn't keep his words in check.

But he was right. He was right, but she wouldn't acknowledge that. She'd never acknowledge that.

The gentle hush of the running water barely reaching his eardrums, it felt farther and farther away with every second as if it was echoing from the other end of a cavern. The cacophony of his heart pounding in his chest overrode the grounding sound of the water. It was growing louder, rising and rising till he could feel his heart forcing it's way out of his throat.

That tie was really irritating him but no matter how he pulled it wouldn't come undone. He was suffocating.

I can't breathe...

He tugged at the collar of his shirt.

I can't breathe.

His hands tore across the binding seams.

I can't breathe!

Jeongin yelled out. He reached for the first item he could grab, something, anything, and threw it across the bathroom, hearing small pills break from their respective bottle and scatter across the floor. He had half the mind to crush the ones by his feet but no matter how hard he dug his heel the medicine would not crack.

Painkillers.

Of course, what else would it be.

He kicked them away. Yanked at the cloth melding to his forearms. Pulled at his hair. Pinched his skin. Bit at his cheeks till he could taste metal on his tongue. Just to ignore the frustration swelling in his veins and sobs wracking his chest. He settled with pacing around the bathroom, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, a restlessness keeping him furious though all he wanted to do was curl up and hide. This must have been what dying felt like.

Why can't he do as he's told?

Why can't he listen?

Why can't he stay quiet?

Why can't he disappear?

Jeongin lost his balance, temporarily breaking him from the depths of his mind. The back of his ankle pulsed. His shoe must have clipped it when he was pacing around.

He rubbed at his temples. Dizzy, he must have been dizzy, everything was swimming. It was blurry. The dark blotches in the edges of his vision were slowly closing in till he couldn't see any more then a small speck of the world. Jeongin's head felt fuzzy. With a shaky hand, he shut the obnoxious faucet off. Why do you even exist?

He wanted to exist.

To someone.

To anyone.

No, not to "exist".

He didn't want to exist.

He wanted to live.

The reflection in the mirror stared at him. It looked pathetic. Disheveled and red eyed, a terrified glimmer dancing in his features, chest heaving as it tried to catch it's breath. He had to wonder if that was really him. The same polite boy done up in suit and tie, alone in the bathroom for no one to hear him scream. But he couldn't tear his gaze away. As he gaped, it was almost as if a switch in him had flipped.

He decided.

Jeongin ripped open the bathroom door, storming down the hallway before he could process where his legs were taking him. He let them carry his mind far away from here, anywhere but here, let them show him where he can do that. Live. Not live like the security that money had been wasted on, not like the tie restraining his every breathe, not like the teachers who crammed tests and full marks down his throat at every moment.

Thoughts of being intrusive and impolite tossed out the window as his head swirled. He descended down the stairs, taking each step with an extra pound that resonated in the house. Let it. Let it resonate in the hallways and in the bedrooms, under the dresser and to the ears of their ignominious guests, towards his parents and the heart of his mother. Let them listen. Let them hear the moment he descends from the pedestal he struggled to stay atop because he was never put there in the first place.

"Jeongin, there you are!"

His mother stormed forward, launching herself forward to snatch his elbow. She snarled, "Where do you think you're going? The guests have not left."

"I don't know where I'm going, but I don't care either," He told honestly. The door was so close, an arms length away and he could leave, he could be free from the opaque smiles and falsified laughter. The stodgy conversations of be this, be that, keep your head down, pretend you're this, pretend you're that. Just a little bit more...

Her grip tightened around his arm, the pressure her nails put as they dug into his skin leaving crescent bruises in his skin but she never let up. Even for a second. She started to pull him away from the door, "You will be staying here, you will listen to me!"

"No," Jeongin wiggled free from her grasp and backing up against the front door, "I'm tired of this... I'm tired of you!"

"Jeongin- Jeongin!"

She tried to catch his shirt in her fist.

But he already had the door ripped open.

Jeongin was gone, out the front door enclosing the warm and into the brisk night air biting at his cheeks as he sprinted down the darkened sidewalk. His head burned. His heart burned. His eyes burned, it all burned and constricted till he couldn't tell the difference between the houses he ran by and the dogs who barked at him. The overhead streetlights didn't help the haze either.

Forward. That was the only direction he could head in. Forward and not go back unless he wanted the shouts behind him in his ears and the claw marks in his elbow bleed. It hadn't even cross his mind that he didn't have a destination to escape to, not to mention he forgot to grab his phone off his desk. He couldn't call to warn him but Seungmin didn't live too far away, neither did Felix. And their parents usually didn't mind him showing up at strange times when he needed to get away from his Mother. Only a block or so over, a few minute sprint with the rate he was going at and the way the palpitations in his chest wouldn't settle down.

After a while of tearing down the never-ending snake of concrete, Jeongin slowed to a jog and attempted to spot the needed crossroads to get to his friend's house. He took a wild guess to where he was, and the distance he put between his house behind him. When the letterings on the signs danced and wouldn't let him read it, he decided to cross at the nearest four-way intersection and hope it was a step in the correct direction.

It was about halfway to the other side when he winced. A blinding light hauling closer and closer from the corner of his eye. A pair of headlights speeding towards Jeongin.

But the car wasn't slowing down.

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