Don't Call Me Angel || VMIN

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Eyes puffy and sore from both his lack of sleep and crying, Jimin rubbed at them, blurring his already hazy vision for a few seconds. He bit the inside of his cheek, nervously nipping at his bottom lip while he replayed the previous twenty minutes or so inside his head, the elder's words burrowing further into his brain.

Then, I'll stay with you while you figure it out. I'm not going anywhere. They caused the aching in his chest to ease and softened the anxious jitters that shook him every few moments. This had all happened before and last time, he had sworn he was going to try harder to accept things, that he wasn't going to ignore his feelings, no matter the consequences. Scoffing at himself, he thought of how long that promise had lasted, clearly old habits stuck fast and they were going to be much harder to break than he had assumed.

A fond memory of Jieun sprung to his mind; it was one of the many times she had comforted him during his difficult moods. She often enjoyed quoting Mark Twain to him, one of the authors Joohyun had studied and therefore talked a lot about. One of his favourites went something along the lines of: a habit cannot be tossed out of the window, it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time. That's all he really needed now, to be carefully coaxed out of the protective shell he had formed around himself, one inch at a time.

The only progress he had made thus far was not flinching whenever he held Taehyung's hand. It was only his hand though, any more and he began to freak out. Then again, that wasn't exactly something to just sweep aside under the carpet, it was an achievement, albeit a small one. It was still progress, he decided resolutely.

Rubbing his eyes again, not helping their reddening appearance, the ravenette noticed a flicker of calm manifest inside him and his lips gave a hopeful twitch that could almost be counted as a smile. Even thinking about interlacing their fingers and having the soft pad of the other's thumb run over his knuckles brought him a smidge of peace. He leaned into the chair, looking over at the desk covered in documents, that he now recognised to be blueprints for the floorplan of some building, and finally made eye contact with Taehyung.

He wasn't giving up quite yet, he resolved. It was going to be painful, but he was willing to try if it meant there was a chance he would get better.

"Is there anything else that would help you relax so you might be able to get some rest?" the brunette asked, tilting his head forward as he rested it on top of his hands.

Much to Jimin's comfort, the other had simply listened to his recount of the incident with his sister and not made a single intrusive comment or asked any questions. He had let the younger get rid of all the emotion pent up inside him from keeping that memory bottled up for so long and hadn't pressed for more details, even though the dancer knew he wanted to say something. Instead, he had waited, given his as much time as he needed, before approaching the subject they had been skimming over prior to his rant.

"If medicine won't work, would you try a herbal remedy or something?"

The effort he was willing to put in to help him made the nerves in the smaller's body simmer down to a practically non-existent level. Slowly shaking his head, he spoke up before the elder could say anything more, not wanting to give him the wrong idea by declining every offer that was proposed.

"There's one thing that might work," he voiced honestly, folding his hands together in his lap to stop them fidgeting nervously at the prospect of what he was about to mention, "But, I don't know how it'll help the whole bed situation."

"Let's focus on that when we have to, then," Taehyung answered, and it comforted the younger to see how ready to engage he was, "Are you going to tell me or is this a puzzle that I have to figure out myself?"