to end up at the sea
minimoni + sentinel/guide au. 2.1k. for @/trueto7 on bluesky // bsky
He feels it like the last gasp before drowning, a black wave of water and a gut-clench panic. The nausea comes a heartbeat after, the thick claustrophobic misery of touch and too much, and he straightens up on instinct, elbow cracking into the side of his chair and sending sparks all the way up his arm to and down to his littlest finger. He bites back a curse, cradling his elbow, and the panic gets heavier. Smothering.
“Jimin?” Next to him, Taehyung startles, pen drawing a thick line through his notes. The lecturer down in front keeps droning on, oblivious to the distraction in the back row of the lecture hall. Whatever he’s saying is lost on Jimin, in one ear and out the other. His attention is caught instead on the blackwater terror echoing around his head and between his ribs. It’s hard to breathe. “Jimin-ah?”
“I’m okay,” he says, remembering to whisper. It’s hard when all his attention is turned away from class to whoever it is in the building caught in this horrible feedback loop of overwhelming panic and sensation and pain. It’s hard to remember it’s not his hurt, not his fear. “I’m fine, I just—"
“What is it?”
Jimin takes a breath. Not his fear, he reminds himself, though it’s hard to believe that when his heart is rabbiting and the sensation of drowning is so close. Someone in the building, he thinks, and that—the reminder of space, of distance, of closeness and the world—helps a little. He takes another breath and lets the crash of overwhelmed wash over him and pass on. He knows how to do this.
“I gotta go.”
“Go where? What—"
“Just— Can you watch my stuff?”
Taehyung, bless him, doesn't hesitate to nod. “Yeah, of course. But why?“
“I just…” He’s never had to explain it before, not to someone who doesn't know already. He shakes his head. “I gotta check on someone.”
“Who? Jimin-ah—"
He stands, fingers still stinging, and squeezes Taehyung’s shoulder as he slips down the row of students, too distracted to offer more than a mumbled apology for knocked-over bags and unplugged chargers. Then he’s out of the hall and into the bright, hot lobby of the sciences building, and someone is—
Stop it, breathe, stop it, get it together—
Jimin takes another breath. He can do this. He can follow it, find them. Can’t help if he’s not there. He just needs whoever it is to hold on a little longer.
He takes another breath and closes his eyes, blocking out the sunlight streaming through the wide windows and the chatter of students cutting through the lobby and the buzz of the air conditioning, and focuses on the echo of feeling sluicing through him. Find the line, his mother always says, and Jimin has never entirely understood what she means by that. Right now, he understand perfectly.
He opens his eyes and follows his feet.
There’s a crowd waiting for the elevator so he forgoes it, shoving into the stairwell hard enough that the door clangs against the wall and thuds shut behind him. He doesn’t care; he’s already pushing himself upwards, feet slapping against concrete, breath coming short in a way that’s half exertion and half whoever is on the other end of the tether, reeling him in. It’s nothing like guiding his brother on the playground, or finding his dad across a crowded mall. There’s something urgent about this, a hook under his belly, and it drags him all the way up to the sixth floor labs.
He crashes out of the stairwell and pauses to gulp down air, pushing his hair out of his face. They’re nearby; he knows they're nearby. But this close, the fuzzy jumble of a spike is overwhelming—he feels it in his teeth and behind his eyes, and it makes the effort of pinpointing the source twice as difficult.
“Hey,” says a student coming out of a classroom, and Jimin has to blink twice to bring their face into focus. “You looking for somewhere?”
“No, um,” says Jimin. “No. Thanks though.”
“You alright?” asks the kid, but Jimin’s already moving, letting instinct guide him. Down one hall, past brimming classrooms, then down another full of offices, and around a corner—he’s always known the science building was a maze but this is ridiculous—and then he’s down a quieter, dimmer hall, where all the doors are marked with warnings and the lights are mostly off, and somewhere nearby is the sound of—
It’s not sobbing exactly, but it’s close. The too-harsh cut of heavy breathing, air scraping in and out. Jimin picks up the pace, shoes loud against the linoleum.
He almost misses him. He’s curled between some machine that looks like it's from the eighties and a cart full of dusty folding chairs, curled in his makeshift bolthole with his knees drawn up and hands over his ears, head bent low. The surging waves of panic and nausea and disgust crash over Jimin, endless. If this is how it feels to him, he can barely manage how it feels to the boy.
“Hey,” he says, modulating his voice quieter as he kneels down in front of him. His hands shake a little. He's never had to do this for a stranger. “Hey, can you hear me?”
He gets no response save for the same rasping wheeze. Jimin hesitates, then reaches out and touches the narrow sliver of skin peeking out between the boy’s sock and the cuff of his pants.
Immediately, everything gets worse.
For a moment, Jimin sinks in it, swallowed by the maelstrom of touch—shirt sharp-rough-tight, jacket claustrophobic, shoes leaden and crushing his feet. The wall is searing cold and the accidental brush of an elbow against the chair cart is the worst sort of shock, and all of it is endless, a sweeping wash of misery that crashes again, and again, and again. Jimin’s breath sticks in his throat, and his stomach turns over, and his head throbs.
But it’s not his. It’s not his skin, not his panic, not his hurt. He can turn it down. He knows how to turn it down.
His mother always talks about it like dials on the radio, tuning things to the perfect station between the static, but for Jimin it’s never been like that. Jimin’s always felt guiding like dancing—knowing the right distance to extend an arm, or the right amount of weight to put down. His mom says he must be very visual, but he thinks he must explain it badly because it’s not about what it looks like. It’s about how it feels. About making his body the right shape.
Only now it’s not his body, or his brother’s, or even his father. Right now, it’s this boy, coiled up in the hallway like the world itself is out to harm him.
He flinches when Jimin touches him, a new and miserable sensation, but Jimin eases it like a limb, takes the weight away. And then, slowly: the prickling shirt. The stifling jacket. The weight of shoes. He takes the slump of his back against the wall and makes it gentle, slow. Draws out the space between the boy’s elbow and the cart, marking the distance and its absence to make both simpler. Gentler. He choreographs kindness in each shifting sensation, until touch doesn't break or brand. Until the waves settle, and the boy’s breathing evens.
“Hey,” says Jimin again, and this time there’s a stirring of movement, of unwinding, in response. “Are you okay?”
The boy’s head lifts. He has a plain face, except for his sharp eyes, which are glossy with tears. The boy reaches as though to brush them away, then hesitates, then wipes them anyway. He seems almost startled by the ease of it. Jimin is still touching his ankle.
“You,” says the boy, voice rough, and then he clears his throat. When he speaks again, his voice is even and deep. “What did you do?”
“I turned it down.” Jimin’s never had to explain this to someone who doesn’t know before. “I— I felt you. I wanted to help.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
“Have you… Has that happened before?”
“It’s never been bad like that,” says the boy, rubbing at the back of his neck, a faint flush high on his cheeks. “Usually I can deal with it.”
Jimin watches his face shift as he speaks, then shift more as he falls silent, thinking. After a moment Jimin pulls his hand back, slow, and the boy flinches but doesn’t spike again.
“Do you know what it was?”
“I’ve read about it,” the boy says. “Spikes, I mean. I didn’t realize it would be like that.” He blinks and looks at Jimin with newfound attention, his gaze sharp and deep. “You stopped it.”
“I— Yeah.” There’s no point in lying. “It’s sort of what I do.” He doesn’t say that guiding for the boy, for this stranger, felt clearer and more important than it's ever felt with anyone else. “Park Jimin. Third year.”
He holds his hand out, and the boy eyes it warily for a moment before he takes it gingerly. Jimin adjusts his touch minutely, softening his grip, and watches the boy’s shoulders drop in relief.
“Kim Namjoon,” he returns. “Fourth year.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Namjoon-ssi.”
“You too, Jimin-ssi. Do you do this a lot?”
“Not really,” says Jimin, laughing a little at the improbability of it all. He’s still holding Namjoon’s hand, he realizes, but it’s sort of nice. He has a big hand, a sturdy grip now that he’s not afraid it’ll hurt. Jimin’s distantly proud of that, of being able to not-hurt. “Just my brother, usually. You were really loud.”
Namjoon winces and tugs his hand back. “Sorry.”
“No! No, I didn’t mean it like that.“ He frowns, not sure exactly what he meant it like. “I’m glad I could help,” he settles on. “I mean, I’m sorry about whatever triggered it, but I’m really glad I could help.”
“It was just a bad day,” Namjoon shrugs. “Lab was bad. Makes things loud.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It's alright. I'm lucky you were here.”
“Yeah,” agrees Jimin, though he’s not sure luck was the only thing to do with it. His mom says, sometimes, that these skills have a sense of their own. Like they know when the right person is around. He swallows the thought down. “I’ve actually never met anyone else like me. Or, us I guess. I mean, here on campus.”
“My roommate does it a bit,” says Namjoon, which is a surprise. It must read on Jimin’s face, because he shrugs, looking embarrassed. “We figured it out when we both kind of set each other off.”
“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense. You can get a kind of feedback loop sometimes, without a guide for balance.”
“You seem to know a lot about it.”
“Well.” Jimin shrugs, embarrassed. “My whole family is— I mean, we all do it a bit.”
“Oh. So then you know a lot. Maybe you could— only if you want of course—but maybe you could tell me more about it?”
“Yeah,” says Jimin. “Yeah it would be, y’know. Nice to talk about it with someone. If you want.”
“Yeah,” says Namjoon. “I think that would be nice. Maybe somewhere less cramped.”
“Oh,” says Jimin, realizing suddenly that they’re both still crouched on the dusty floor in some back hallway of the science building, and also he’s going to miss the end of his lecture. “Oh, right, yeah. I actually— I have to get back to class, but if you’re around later, we could maybe do coffee? Or, uh, some other beverage of your choosing?”
“Coffee is good,” says Namjoon with the start of a smile. “When are you done with class?”
“In, uh.” He checks his phone and winces. “Ten minutes.”
“I’ll meet you out front after?”
Jimin hesitates. “It won’t be too much? After, y’know.”
“I think I’m okay,” says Namjoon. He flexes his hands and rolls out his neck and gives Jimin a look that Jimin can't begin to read. “If not, I’ve got you, right?”
“Yeah,” Jimin agrees, face warm. He pushes himself to his feet and offers Namjoon a hand, helping him up. He’s tall, as it turns out. Has easily half a head on Jimin, and a dimpling smile, and a warm, firm grip, and in the touch of his skin he feels like the steady, even wash of the sea. Jimin holds on a little too long, and hopes Namjoon doesn’t notice. Namjoon squeezes his hand a little before he lets go, and Jimin thinks maybe he does notice, and that maybe also he doesn’t mind. “Yeah, you’ve got me.”
