UNRAVELED // YOONMIN

TATTOO

Now that you know about what happened with jin,

I think it's time to switch gears.

In that time something irrevocable happened to me,

And that set me up for what I'm about to tell you.

I finished my freshmen year of high school,

Jin graduated,

And I thought that I had closed that chapter of my life forever,

But it was like a stone was wedged in the door jam,

And the possibility of a life I used to be scared of never fully closed.

It was imperceptible really,

And that's why I did what happens next.

This is a tragedy remember?

I was in the middle of my sophomore year,

I had become friends with hoseok and jungkook.

They were nothing like jin,

No,

They were much worse.

They didn't care about me,

Not like Jin had.

But I was naive at the time,

And I thought they were nothing like jin,

Because they had manipulated me into believing they were better.

Unfortunately for me,

Birds of a feather flock together,

And I was just about to find out how bad they really were.

You would have thought by now I would have run out of naivety because of what happened last year,

But I just kept surprising myself with how little of the world I really knew,

So without further ado,

It was just like any other day,

We were at a convenience store.

Joking around,

Getting snacks,

Normal.

"I dare you to take that"

Jungkook was pointing at a candy bar,

He raised an eyebrow at me,

A challenge,

And I took it,

I shoved it in my pocket without a second thought.

A minuscule part of me was concerned,

Banging against the wall of ice,

Begging me not to do it,

But he was caged in,

He couldn't do anything about it.

So I stole the candy bar,

And I didn't get caught.

And the most disturbing part about the whole thing was that I didn't care if I got caught,

Not by the police at least.

Something was wrong with me,

But I was stuck in an echo chamber,

Consequently, I didn't realize that I needed help at the time.

But I promise you,

There will come a time in the future where I did become my own worst nightmare,

And the reality of that will crash down into me,

Breaking the dam and allowing my emotions to roil over me with vicious unforgiveness. 

All of the platitudes I used to convince myself that I was no different from anyone else,

Would only fill me with self loathing,

"There's nothing wrong with that,

Everyone does it."

And they were so convincing,

Until they weren't.

Now back to the candy bar,

That was the first time I had committed a crime,

But not the last.

It was probably the most insignificant crime though.

The same day,

Jungkook went to get a tattoo,

He wanted me to come with him,

So I did.

He got a solid black band around his wrist,

And then he turned to me.

"You should get one."

I shook my head,

I may not have cared about stealing but I did care about how my mom would react,

And there was no way I was going to get a tattoo.

That's what I told myself at least,

But there I was in the chair,

Getting a tattoo of a candy bar on my chest.

I couldn't control myself.

And later on,

I would go and get a tattoo for every crime I committed.

A reminder of what I had done,

Even though I didn't really need one,

The nightmares were enough.

While the tattoo artist worked on my tattoo,

I started to look around the shop,

There were tattoos of everything you could ever imagine plastered on the walls,

Two other tattoo artists were working on other clients,

And in the corner,

A boy,

With black hair and deathly pale skin sat sketching on a piece of paper,

His sleeves rolled up,

One arm covered in tattoos,

The other blank.

Soon that one would be filled up with my ideas,

I just didn't know it yet.

I was not the only one jin had tainted.