Take My Breath Away

4

When Jimin woke up he was in a quiet hospital room. The room was shrouded in shadows cast by the light of the moon through the window. He was still wearing an oxygen mask and two bags hanging above him were slowly dripping liquid into his veins. He took a deep breath only to immediately regret it, it felt like he was being stabbed in the chest. Not magically healed in a few hours then, he thought.

He then felt the pressure against his left hand resting on his stomach and noticed the figure next to him. A mop of brown hair was splayed out on the bedsheets, some strands resting against the side of Jimin's right thigh. The boy was sitting in an armchair that was pushed as close to the bed as humanly possible, head resting next to Jimin's leg and his hand holding Jimin's. Jungkook's face was facing Jimin and he could get a good look of his features. His eyes were closed, but the skin around them was slightly red as if the boy had been crying. He looked slightly pale and even in his seemingly peaceful sleep Jimin could see a small frown forming on the boy's face. Jimin couldn't help brushing a few strands of hair out of the boy's face, the tips of his fingers brushing against the soft skin of Jungkook's cheek.

Just as he was about to put his hand back down next to him a violent cough forced its way up Jimin's chest. He doubled over from the sheer force, and a bit from the pain. The action woke up the sleeping boy next to him.

"Jimin, hey, are you okay?" Jungkook was looking at him with huge eyes filled with worry. He looked exhausted. If Jimin had suspected the taller boy had cried when his eyes were closed he was one hundred percent sure of it now, Jungkook's eyes were red and bloodshot.

"I'm fine, it was just a cough. I'm okay." His voice sounded slightly muffled from behind the mask. He patted Jungkook's hand reassuringly, an empty gesture he'd learned calmed people down in these kinds of situations. It seemed to relax the boy a bit, his shoulders visibly lowered and the panic in his eyes lessened. He didn't look entirely relaxed though, but Jimin couldn't blame him. If what he had looked like the other times he had been admitted was anything to go by he must look dreadful now. His voice was rough and his breathing was far from back to normal. Yeah, he couldn't blame Jungkook if he wasn't entirely reassured by Jimin's words.

"What time is it?" Jimin had no idea how long he'd been asleep.

Jungkook took his phone out of his pocket and tapped on the screen. "Uhm, 4 AM."

"Damn, I was out for a while then. I always say I would be the worst junkie, I can't handle my morphine at all." Jimin laughed and playfully hit Jungkook's shoulder. "Sometimes I think they might not want me to wake up again."

"Jimin, what the fuck." Jungkook looked horrified, as if Jimin had slapped him in the face. "How can you joke about that stuff when- when you- when you almost-" The boy's voice trailed off, he didn't seem to be able to finish his sentence. He grew angrier and exclaimed: "You were literally gasping for air a few hours ago, you looked so panicked. How can you pretend like everything is fine?"

Jimin sighed and closed his eyes. "Jungkook, do you seriously think this is the first time this has happened to me?" The anger painting the boy's face morphed into surprise, his lips parted and it looked like he might say something but Jimin didn't let him. "Well it isn't. This isn't the first time, it's not the second, it's not even the 10th. Of course I panic, it's not exactly pleasant not being able to breathe. But at this stage, when I'm in a room like this hours later I know I'm going to be fine. There's no use dwelling on it, if I did that every time I went to the hospital it would literally be the only thing I did. So yes, I'm sorry if me joking around right after almost dying makes you uncomfortable, but I have to do it because I don't want to think about the fact that I'm actually dying all the time."

Jimin didn't know why he said all of that, he'd never told anyone that before. Everyone would usually just accept the fact that Jimin joked about death a lot although most didn't like it, he guessed they thought he just had dark humour. He always pretended like everything was fine after he got seriously ill. He didn't like worrying the people around him, he didn't like when his family or his friends looked sad because he was born broken. It was better to put a smile on his face and start getting back to his regular life as fast as possible instead of wallowing in what-ifs and thinking about a day when he might not be so lucky.