Breathe | Na Jaemin

▪︎ELEVEN

Walking out of the basement, banging the door in progress, Jaemin let out a sigh as he rolled his eyes. Fishing out something from his back pocket, he found his pack of cigarettes as he lit a stick, inhaling the nicotine.

"You know, it's not nice to just walk out of the room like that." He heard a woman's voice. I wanna kill her, he thought as she stood beside him. Jaemin watched as the woman pulled out a stick, blowing air out from her mouth as she took another drag. The both of them stood by each other, not speaking at all as they smoked. From a glance, she saw him shifting uncomfortably from where they stood. Taking a closer look, she saw what could be tears that welled up his eyes as he took another drag from the stick.

"You know." She heard the other male speak. "If you're going to stare at me any longer, I might just do the same thing I did to you to the man in that room." He sneered , throwing the cigar stick as he walked away. 

Closing the door of his room, Jaemin starred at the picture frame of him and his mother, holding hands. More tears welled up his eyes as he had those visions, his mother murdered in front of when he was just 10, her screams as the bullet pierced trough her chest. Jaemin saw his mother breathe out for the last time as she looked at him, smiled, and then stopped. Back then Jaemin did what she told him to do, hide under the bed so those monsters  don't catch you, she used to say to 10 year-old Jaemin when he was scared to go to bed. 

But what if the monsters were already under his bed?

What if those monsters were waiting for him to fall asleep just to drag him under his bed to a world beyond?

whenever someone came to the house, especially his father, who was known as an alcoholic and an abusive parent. After hours of hearing his mother's plead and the front door slamming shut, Jaemin used to rush out with a first aid kit just to treat his mother's wounds. 

The man didn't realize he was crying till his tears had dropped on the frame. Placing the frame back, he climbed in bed, hugging his bolster, imagining his mother's warmth hugging him back whenever he used to have nightmares as he fell asleep. 

Like he use to say to his mother, sleep is the cure to everything.