Broken Glass - Taekook

54

I look across at my friends for a moment, something tightening deep within, and then down at the mirror, still clutched in my hand. The glass is still cool, the metal digging into my palm as I turn it around to stare at it for a moment, stare at my own reflection for a moment. And they're right, as they always are, for my face doesn't look like anyone I recognise. 

Sure, it's still my face. My eyes, my face, everything is the right shape, but there's something hidden there that I don't recognise, deep within. The expression that looks back at me isn't my own, a sort of self satisfied smirk, a glint of darkness in the eyes that feels uncomfortably like cruelty. The dash of mud across the forehead is probably mine, because I need to clean up sometimes. 

The only physical difference is my hair, which is much longer than it was the last time I saw it. It doesn't feel that long, though maybe that's just my imagination or my own warped perception of things. There's something very wrong about the whole image, though, something that sends a quiet horror climbing up my spine.

I shudder, blink, and the illusion shifts.

Now, the face that stares out of the glass is frightened, my own eyes gazing back, directly to me, with a confusion that feels so real it strikes across my chest. The panic, the concern, the desperation. The pleading, begging for an answer, anything that could possibly feel like reality. But this version is bloody, the nose smashed to pieces, a bleeding cut on the forehead, a scar across the eye. This person is missing a tooth, and the passion that I feel deep within for Eithyr is gone completely. 

"What have I become?" I murmur to myself, watching this alternative image of myself shout the words, practically scream them out. "What am I watching?" 

"Jungkook," Taehyung calls out, but his low voice is muted, distant, and I find myself swaying on my feet. I force myself to blink, to erase that image, and then when I open my eyes again the image has changed once more. 

This is me, again, but the surroundings are vastly different. I see bright lights, a starry sky that develops into multiple heads, arms, chanting faces. I see figures in the corner of the mirror, making moves that seem almost impossible, their bodies blurring into countless formations and then shifting and changing. For a moment, I think I recognise one as Hoseok, twisting and turning with incredible flexibility, before he shifts back out of sight. 

My hair is shorter here, a deep black, and my face is free of blemishes, save for one strange one. The bulbous end of a black, object, connected to some kind of rope, that I seem to play around with every so often. The smile, the glance out at the night sky as it moves, as it turns. The way one of my hands seems to be grasping the edge of the mirror, as this version of myself mouths along to something I don't recognise, in a rhythm that looks like poetry or music. One of the two. 

"Who was I supposed to be?" 

As I say it, something seems to shift. The face in the mirror meets my eyes directly, seems to see me, and does a double take. He glances back, at something I can't see, and then back at me. I just raise a hand, wave, a little awkwardly, and the hand that's playing with that strange blemish comes up in a responding gesture. And then I blink, and the image is gone again. 

"Jungkook, can you hear me?" Taehyung's voice is desperate, and something about the worry hidden within it finally breaks the hold the mirror has over me. My gaze shifts, and the illusion of my other reflection shimmers and disappears in the corner of my vision. I look up, look at Taehyung, and he sighs in relief. 

"What happened, Kook?" Namjoon questions, and I can see him as well, stepping forward, a little concerned. "You look like you've seen a ghost." 

I manage a small laugh, the sound empty even to me. "Yeah, I guess that's one way of describing it." My legs wobble under me, and for a moment my balance leaves me. Taehyung reaches out instinctively, grabs my arm, and I lean on him a little, trying to find my sanity again. 
"What did you see in there?" he asks, helping me to sit down. I don't respond for a second, my head a little foggy, and his grip on me tightens a little. "Kook, what did you see in the mirror? Talk to me, please."