The one where Jimin comes home + your depression is bad again
Jimin would sing....
He’d sing to me.
He’d be home from tour
and this time,
Maybe this time sadness crept in to be my companion in his absence.
To sit at the table beside me and
Eat spoonfuls of my cooking
only to lock me in a room with no sunlight or air and smile wickedly at my desperation.
Home from tour,
He’d know.
He’d know before he ever saw me.
He would sense it
the moment the planes tires kissed the earth-
the second his graceful feet passed my threshold-
that something was wrong.
He’d feel the presence of something
evil and cold and dark
and his heart would sink through the floorboards when he’d realize what has come for me while he’s been away.
But he’s loved me long enough to know what he has to do.
He’d ease himself onto the bed beside me,
close but never touching.
He wouldn’t look at me at first.
He’d know it would overwhelm me
after being trapped in my isolation so long.
I’d need to acclimate slowly to another living being,
and he’d be patient enough to slowly wade into the water with me,
one toe at a time.
Because this one was especially bad.
-
Propped up on one elbow,
He’d notice the insistence of everything troubling me.
The racket of imposters claiming to be urgent and pressing and needing of immediate attention as they grasp and claw at my very essence.
He’d know I felt like the world was rattling so fast on its axis that it might hurl us all into space at any second without warning as I lay bracing myself, clutching fistfuls of whatever I can reach.
He’d know that the weight of our salvation pressed itself into my veins and I was imploding with the pressure of it.
He’d know that
while all that was happening ,
while the chaos of hades raged in my head,
thaat the room of darkness I laid in was incredibly silent.
To a stranger this room was shrouded in velvet.
Nothing
no sound,
no noise
was even in here.
My own breathing would be a ghost.
He’d know that I had swallowed everything.
That he would have to be extra careful
In his attempt to save me
with all the intricacy of diffusing a bomb
And those were always the scariest ones.
-
He’d never try to pretend that he was capable of fixing it for me.
He’d never pretend that I simply didn’t use the strength I had to carry this on my own. He’d know this gargantuan world destroying planet disguised itself as a featherweight while it crushed my atlas hands.
He’d never try to patch up an existential bullet wound with the bandaid of a saccharine, insubstantial greeting card.
He’d never let immaturity spring to the surface, giggling anxiously,nervously...shifting to laugh inappropriately because swimming at my theoretical depth seems scary.
He’d never retreat to the cowardice of pushing me to shove my problems into my higher powers lap and abandoning me to entreat him on my own even as my worship grows frail because he’s too scared to touch me when my mind is fiery and I’m too much of a questioner.
No, Jimin would lay on his side
Propped up on one elegant elbow and
Lay in the silence with me.
He’d respect the weight of my thoughts,
The immensity of the gravity pressing down on my brain,
And he’d meet it head on.
He’d jump headfirst into the depths with me.
Dive lithely into the marianas trench without an oxygen tank to swim with me.
And I’d know.
The waters would ripple and I’d feel the shift- that even in the silence, i was no longer alone.
He wouldn’t even need to say a word at first,
His gaze would be focused on all the worlds beyond my sight that I cannot yet see, too blinded by the cacophony of chaos in front of me.
Slowly,
Deliberately,
with gentle intent,
He’d remind me that I am not alone.
That all these sorts of things keep him awake at night too.
That intelligence is terrifying.
That self awareness is terrifying.
That decisions are terrifying.
That wondering if you’re doing the right thing is terrifying.
That the future... that life...our hearts...our choices-
That all of it
is wild and impossible and terrifying.
-
And at the purity of his confession, the demons would halt their raucous arguments to listen to his sincerity.
the first elastic thread in the cord of tension would snap.
and Silence would fall.
Not the suffocating kind-
but the intimate kind-
The kind that hushes any insistent worries or fears like a mother pressing a kiss to your head
because it assures you that you don’t need to answer it.
You can simply sit in its company
and it will hold you up.
It will do the rest.
The only echo in the space
Is the faintest whisper of our out of sync breathing,
Chests attempting to balance themselves amidst the stress of tension.
And once my eyes finally shut
Blocking out the world,
He’d sing.
Voice delicate and fragile as
Shattered glass on a tile floor.
But the conviction,
even in the airiness of it....
He sings because he means it.
I won’t know any of the words
as he serenades me in a language I can’t understand
But I’ll know it
somehow.
I’ll know the feeling of it.
Regardless, I’ll know the pain in it, the sincerity, the burden, the greatness, the aspiration, the comfort...
The hope.
Eyes still closed,
I’ll feel a tear run down my temple and lose itself in my hair
Over and over,
The dam will trickle until it breaks-
until the stream of tears turns into a river
And my hair is 80% saltwater
And I’m a mermaid who never learned how to swim
As the weight of all the things I can never understand wash over me
And I break the surface gasping for air.
-
The ceiling is all I’ll see then
As we lay in the darkness.
No light coming through the windows....
Not even the flicker of a candle to illuminate the madness.
Lost in the darkness I thought I’d gotten rid of but still haunts my heart as the rest of Korea falls into a deep sleep.
He still won’t touch me
Because he knows I’m not ready to be touched.
I’m still a gelding yet to be broken in
And the slightest motion will spook me into running for the hills.
There’s too much tension
Too much strain
And I’m not ready for Jimin to help save me yet.
But then his song will change....
He’ll sing me a song I know.
A song in English.
Maybe even a song we wrote.
Every lyric permeated with the ache and pain
That only a soul can feel
And I’ll shut my eyes and belt.
I’ll harmonize and weave my anguish with his until our song is a tapestry of
The broken human condition and my chest is finally empty.
I’ll pant,
Heaving as I catch my breath and the riverbed of my tears runs dry.
Then
And only then,
will Jimin reach out and
Gently
Just barely
trace his fingertips across my forehead and over my hair.
My lungs will still-
Finally able to take in the clean sweet air
Of relief-
And I’ll smile into his touch
Into this feeling of being completely emptied and completely free.
Synopsis: (Y/N) is a very reserved kind of girl that has lots of trouble connecting with people and has unresolved issues with herself. Being forced on a group date who will she meet? And how could he possibly change her future prospects?
Word count: 3k
In my eyes I’ve always been able to classify people in two categories: those who dared to live their life at their fullest and those who simply were too afraid to step out of their comfort zone to do so. However, even if I myself viewed life this way it didn’t prevent me from being classified in the latter group, for various reasons I don't dare to confront.
Those kind of people who simply follow the tide paved by society, those who blindly believe what they were made to believe is good for them, those who won’t ever wonder if there’s something beyond what they’re told to do... I like believing I'm not one of them.
If somebody asked me how to describe myself I wouldn’t really know where to begin.
Actually, that’s a straight out lie, I perfectly know who I consider myself to be, it's just that my opinion on myself is not socially acceptable. Or rather unhealthy , I'd say?
"You must smile, be positive and accept your flaws!" is what everyone preaches from behind a filter, a flawless make up technique and a superiority complex. Meanwhile, even if I tried and blend with the rest with a fakery mask on, the truth is still floating in the back of my mind, like a seed of discord waiting to be watered by negativity and self-doubt.
The truth is that I’m a coward. Such a big coward that I prevented myself from growing because of it.
What is that? I don't know. I keep it caged in the back of my mind. It's not something I am willing to change. You should just ignore it, like I do. That way I can keep living.
This is how I begun my daily reflections as I let myself fall on my bed like a dead body, exhausted from yet another day of endless college classes and a flooded whatsapp group that made me wonder if it was even possible to feel more unattached to my friends, or any other human being for that matter.
Still, I had to push myself a bit further if I didn't want my existence to be forgotten. I couldn't let myself give in to my hermit tendencies.
I unlocked the phone. “Why do we always spend weeks without talking and then we suddenly have texting fits?” I reprimanded to no one in particular. After all I was living alone in an apartment by myself. Sounds fancy right? Not really, the smallest flat one could ever conceive.
Still, if it meant me being able to be alone it was more than enough for me. I was secretly thankful that my parents didn't oppose to the idea of me not having a flat mate. Not that they would like me being so antisocial.
The mobile phone's light blinded me a bit amidst the dark room. The group bombarding me with messages was the one that I shared with my closest friends.
My eyes quickly skimmed over the hundreds of messages.
Break-up, was the key word that caused such a ruckus.
My eyes widened in surprise, and I ran to get my bag.
Me and the girls were to meet up in the usual cafe, we would often go there to hang out from time to time when we managed to make our schedules match. I really liked that coffeplace. It was the perfect mixture of old and modern, isolated it was located in an alley next to a main street, bearing the perfect balance between noisy and quiet, modern and outdated.
I took a glimpse of them sitting in the furthest table from the entrance, our usual spot, with their respective favorite mixes of coffee and my usual Frapuccino waiting for me on the table, rather seducing me to quicken my pace towards them.
As I was approaching something actually put me out of the food craving trance I was in. Kara’s expression was a mix of “Oh, (Y/N) you’re gonna hate us”, and “I’m so sorry, we are doing this to you, but we are”.
Reflexively, I frowned as I sat in the seat reserved for me. “...So, what’s up? Please don’t scare me...”.
They both cracked a smile as if I had just nailed something, pity in Kara’s eyes, as she tended to be a very empathetic person. That was reason enough to make my mental emergency alarms go off.
Mira's expression went stern again. What the heck was going on? “...I’m just gonna be direct (Y/N)… I’ve broken with my boyfriend already...”.
Oh, Ape, Mira’s boyfriend. That’s actually how me and Kara called that guy, derogatorily. Nickname well deserved, he was a brainless man that had cheated on Mira more than once and who we wanted to punch fervently. Still, she seemed pained.
“Why now, after so much time after the cheating happened?” I asked sincerely.
“I may hold affection for him, but there's no love anymore since that happened. I guess now I’m finally free”.
As we pulled each other in a hug, we kept on pressing the issue to get her to vent the most she could to forget the bastard.
“Actually… It may seem too soon, but if I’ve been able to call this relationship off it’s because I am interested in a guy” Mira murmured hesitantly as if she were afraid to seem too shallow.
“I was hoping you’d help me by going to a...” tension built up while Mira stopped to breathe deeply, squinting her eyes she quickly muttered “...group date”.
OH. Okay, it makes sense that they’d plan to carefully throw this bomb to me, since it’s obvious that I’d say no, because hell NO. These kind of social conventions were the epitome of my social anxiety triggering situations. I mean, imagine the pressure of being set up with a guy you don’t even know, who won’t want you to be his pair and having to interact with a dude forced to talk to you for the whole afternoon. Oh, yes it sounds like a dream come true! I'm sure it won't be awkward at all and I won't want to flee and curl up like a worm into a safe position into the safety of my house! It sounded like a great idea, right? And---
“Wait (Y/N), I know what you’re thinking, but it isn’t necessarily a triple date, it’s just us and his friends hanging out to have fun, and me trying to get closer to him while we are at it!”
"Well, there will also be as many guys as us girls, but hey, that doesn't mean anything!" snickered Kara.
“...That actually sounds reasonable… But--” I stopped as Kara actually made a pleading look to me. I had to be more reasonable. Mira had gone through a lot because of that Ape, and we didn’t want to see her like that ever again. Going could even help us see if this new guy was a threat Mira couldn’t spy, like it usually happened to her, since she tended to be too naive. Yes, maybe it was time to be less selfish and act for the sake of my friend.
Therefore, I ended up accepting and suspiciously being told the place and the date when it was happening, as if they had been planning it all along even before I accepted.
Will they were both very excited I had a gut feeling that something was gonna go really wrong.
It’s not a date, relax, understood? Understood. There is NO pressure, I don’t need to pretend to be more talkative and friendly than I am, understood? Understood. I’m just going there to make new friends and help my own, understood? Understood. Okay, then, WHY AM I STILL FREAKING OUT.
As you can probably guess I’m not a really a... people person, to put it lightly.
If there’s something that bothers me is the awkwardness associated to meeting new people. And not only because of my deficient social skills, but the weirdness of the situation itself. The shortest silence makes my brain freak out trying to find a topic that is smart enough to stop the excruciating silence, most of the time failing and not being able to join in the conversation. It's not nice, feeling out of place.
I’d just say I’ve learnt out of trial and error that the wisest course of action is to stay out of this situations the most I can. Maybe that’s the reason why I don’t have many friends. Or maybe the reason is because I’m plainly a strange and awkward person, who knows?
Who’d say that as a college student I’d keep having the same issues as I had when I went to elementary school?
The reflection was worthy, however, the time to leave was approaching. I had already been dressed hours ago and now I was getting urges to either change my whole outfit or just pick the phone and make a shitty excuse to not go altogether.
I looked at myself in the mirror one last time. I didn’t choose anything special, just a casual outfit that I’d wear normally but that fit me and made me feel a little bit more safer and confident. The urges kept coming harder and the uneasiness growing steadily as I encouraged myself to just ignore them and crack the door open.
When I finally were approaching my all too familiar cafe, I got angry with Mira for making all of us meet there. I would probably always remember this awkward encounter everytime I went there again.
The door's bell tingled as if it was a sign that I could no longer back down from this. I noticed the usual excited salutation from Mira on our usual table, Kara timidly smiling on her right side and a guy who I suspected was Mira's interest on her left.
He gave off a warm and approachable vibe, with a smile so broad that I could tell right away why she was became interested in him in the first place.
His name was Namjoon and despite my inherent nervousness he was able to make me feel a bit more at peace as he hugged me in a brotherly hug after introducing himself.
"Oh, nice to meet you, my name is (Y/N)" I managed to blurt out thanks to being a bit calmer.
"You know, we were just talking about you" Namjoon said jokingly still with a soothing smile that pinpointed why Mira had her eyes on him. The guy gave off a warm vibe, that of an understanding person.
"Oh no, what did you tell him Mira!" my cool went out the window, my impulsiveness striking yet again.
"Oh Namjoon you're such a snitch!!" Mira exclaimed."We were talking about how late you always are..."
"... and how we - as foster mothers - will have to keep you on a leash to keep you from running away" Kara finished with a smile.
I could feel my cheeks grow redder by the second as I understood they exposed my more than obvious uneasiness in social situation. Maybe explaining why Namjoon so friendly?
"If my mothers have to be such a snitches maybe I should change families" I said as I averted my eyes and sat on a chair between Namjoon and Kara.
"...well, if it makes you feel any better at least you dared to come here. Jungkook-ah on the other hand blatantly refused to" said Namjoon with a disappointed look while I took a mental note to pat this guy’s head if I ever met him.
"And this other was just too lazy to come and that other one was just too busy cooking... well let's say that the ones we are missing are the leftovers. Expect them to be 2 hours late."
“...Wow, okay… I guess now we’re genuinely intrigued” we muttered in unison.
The conversation fluently went back and forth. And all throughout it I became aware of the amazing people skill the guy had. He knew perfectly how to joke around without awakening further than necessary my anxiety, nor did he try to make me ‘more outgoing’ like some people would try to do as soon as they'd realize how shy I am. Honestly, he was an interesting guy to talk to, specially how he managed to make me feel comfortable.
At some point, probably after almost an hour, just as Namjoon predicted, the bell rang muffled by the complainings of a pair of boys, which I supposed were the special cookies.
My heart raced at the thought, in a mix of expectancy and anxiety to meet them.
"I told you we should have used google maps!!"complained the shorter and blond one to his tag along.
"Aigo, shut up already, you were as lost as I was" answered with little guilt the other one, with a hint of a strikingly lower voice than the first.
The blond, despite his complaints, left me in awe with how flawless his complexion was. He had plump lips and enviable fair skin, that suddenly drove me self-aware of my own skin, rougher in comparison to his.
This one walked in front of his taller and deep-voiced friend, whom had a white cap that covered his face as he lazily approached the table.
"Hyung! It was Jimin-ah’s fault all along, you know how he's always a trillion years late when he goes to the bathroom" the white-cap guy told Namjoon with a hint of real annoyance in his joking overall tone.
Namjoon facepalmed at the situation.
"AH! What are you saying in front of them!" The blond guy apparently named Jimin whined.
Probably Namjoon’s statement reminded white-cap guy of our existence, since he let out a subtle “oh” as he turned his head in our direction, letting me finally see his face. “Oh, hello” he faintly smiled to us as he seemed to realize he had made a fool out of his friend.
His dark strands of hair messily peeked from under his cap covering his thick eyebrows, and despite his low voice I wouldn’t have been able to decide whether he had a childish face or a manly one. Somehow his smile stirred a certain uneasiness on my gut that not even I understood.
"Hey! My name is Mira, and I'm Namjoon's friend from uni" she started quickly with her trademark presentation. Always a spotless smile in her face. I was always amazed by how she and Kara managed to look so lovely and draw a flawless smile on their lips with little to no effort.
The nagging uneasiness kept on creeping, growing stronger every passing second as I watched everyone introducing themselves to the newcomers. I had no intention of being the one going next, but at one point it would be my turn right?
By the time Kara had already started her warm welcoming it was a countdown to me pulling myself together and acting like a normal human being.
Both Jimin and cap-guy looked as if they were from a different whole different dimension from me, even I couldn't avoid noticing how Mira and Kara measured up to those stylish guys. That realization only made me more displeased with the situation. It was a given that I would look out of place.
I could hear a faraway "Nice to meet you too" coming from the newcomers mouths. That was a signal that I was out of time and all the rushing thoughts came to a halt.
By the time they were already finished and it was my turn I had realized I had to pull myself together and stood up from my seat like the others, adrenaline rushing through my whole being. The nagging uneasiness never leaving. It was always better to ignore it in such situations since trying to address the elephant took more time than the few seconds I had left.
I was ready to mask my inner turmoil with a smile, the less crooked possible, when Namjoon grabbed me by my shoulders, and I could swear that for a millisecond his expression was trying to reassure me. He directed me towards the guys and joked again "Aaand this is my new friend (Y/N)."
At any other time I'd have had time to question why was he already calling me a friend despite just having met, but I was already mentally occupied with enough things as I got shoved in front of cap-guy.
Our eyes locked immediately. His pupils were the first thing mine could find as if Namjoon had purposely planned it that way. I was captured by the guy's eyes, fixated for a few seconds they were the only thing I could look at. As if I couldn’t fight how much his eyes pulled me in. His gaze seemed to dig a hole into my soul and back, yet for some reason I wanted to keep on looking at them regardless of my surroundings.
"Nice to meet you, my name's Taehyung!" his bubbly words, unfitting the mysterious vibes that I had been getting from his glance, burst the bubble that surrounded us. Or maybe that surrounded only me? Was it my imagination?
Still, he greeted me happily as he pulled a grin like no other I had ever seen before, adding an even new flavor to the mix of feelings I was already experimenting.
