Burnout ⊗ Jeongchan

④⑤ The Tower

Forewarning: Depictions of anxiety attacks, self injury, suicidal/violent thoughts. (I love SKZ, I swear I love Jeongin please protect him.)

"Are you gonna pay or what?"

Jeongin jerked back to reality, vacantly staring at the corner store counter below the box of cheese crackers he was attempting to buy. With no funds, with no money, not even an empty wallet. His pockets were as void as the nervous stomach he was trying to settle.

"Kid, you doin' okay?" The store clerk waved a hand in front of his face, "You're not lookin' too good. Do you wanna see a docter?"

Jeongin quietly shook his head and mumbled a soft reassurance to the clerk, though he never knew exactly what he said to him. He quietly turned around and dropped his gaze to his shoes as he shuffled out of the store, eyes glazed and head ready to split his being into two enigmas, one of which contained the last of his consciousness in a protective little bubble. The other shut off any grimey feeling of remorse that rotted away his skin. As if he was blacking out yet, he couldn't. He couldn't get away. He wanted to escape and now that he had, it felt empty. Everything felt empty. His pockets, his stomach, his heart, and his mind that chose to abandon him for dead.

The rain pelted at the back of his neck. Not rain, but, that kind of fragile drizzle when the clouded sky couldn't decide what it wanted to do, or what it wanted to be. When it was stuck at a crossroads, and had to make a choice of this or that yet it couldn't so it didn't drizzle, it misted. And when everyone complains that they wanted something different, the rain tries to change but it can't. It will always be the same.

The roads he walked along were slick and barren. Not a headlight to guide his way, not a rumble of tires to tell him to move. With one foot in front of the other, heel to toe, he toed along the yellow middle lines that reflected into his sore eyes like a sun that he blotted from his vision some time ago. As he followed the roads, he hoped it would bring him somewhere better. Maybe somewhere with smiles and laughter, a sweet scent and a happy home, surrounded by a warmth in his chest and loving arms, maybe somewhere he could be proud to be himself, he could have a worth, he could be anyone he wanted to be.

Instead, he was somewhere with scowls and harsh words, the smell of asphalt and no where to go, surrounded by the cold rain seeping into his skin and shivering hands, somewhere he wished to be anyone but himself, where he didn't have a worth, and all he was able to be was some discardable trash shuffling down the center of the road as he tried to calm the queasiness in his body. Trying to convince himself, no, he was sure the farther he went the more someone would come to find him. Tell him that it was alright, that it wasn't his fault, that he didn't take the wrong crossroad, or maybe wake him up and tell him that all this was some sick dream.

The rain began to fall heavier.

Did he really have hope? That someone was there for him? That they cared? What a fucking joke. Where was Jeongin now? He wasn't with anyone, he was shuffling down the road, shaking half to death, with no one to stop him if he decided to take a nosedive over a bridge.

Jeongin was back at the beginning. Simply watching, as life went on around him. No one noticing until he yelled, or tried to be who they wanted to be. His feet dragged to a stop.

No one was coming for him.

No one was looking for him.

Jeongin was alone.

He was just in the way, of everything. Jeongin was a fool to think otherwise. He can't be anything. Like the hair dye on the towel and the oil stains on the rag, it would be easiest if he could be erased. Just a stain, he didn't matter. It didn't matter. What happened to him from here, none of it mattered. Wouldn't it be best if he just...